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AS THE POETS 
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ROOSEVELT 
AS THE POETS SAW HIM 



THE ARMY'S TRIBUTE TO 
COLONEL ROOSEVELT 

#yT V ERYWH ERE on earth American flags to-day are 
M J flying at half-mast, for T. R. is dead. He, whose 
vitality, as great as America's own, could energize a con- 
tinent, died tranquilly in his sleep last Monday morning. 
The returning soldiers will find many changes in their 
country, but none that will touch them all more nearly 
than this, for our generation has lost a great companion. 
It will seem strange when we go home — for a long time 
it will seem strange — 7io longer to hear his familiar voice 
there, no longer to see the light from his window shining 
across America. 

Never did any American have quite such a hold as his 
on the imaginations of his countrymen, and there is no 
American anywhere in the world to-day who has heard 
unmoved the news of his death. Yet on the affections of 
the A. E. F. he had a special claim. His four sons were 
of us. One lies buried now in a field near the Ourcq, 
the wounds of another long since sent him home, and it 
was a new Colonel Roosevelt who, limping slightly, led 
the troops of the 26th Infantry into Germany. Of all 
the banners won in a long and ardent life, that was the 
proudest — that four-starred flag which hung outside the 
house at Oyster Bay. His four sons and his heart were 
teith us and, as all men know, it was the great grief of 
his life that he could not he with us himself. 

Stars and Stripes. 



ROOSEVELT 

AS THE POETS SAW HIM 

TRIBUTES FROM THE SINGERS OF 

AMERICA AND ENGLAND TO 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



EDITED BY 

CHARLES HANSON TOWNE 

Assisted bt CLAKA THACKERAY HILLMAN 
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BT 

CORINNE ROOSEVELT ROBINSON 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1923 






COPTRIGHT, 1923, BT 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Printed in the United States of America 



Published February, 1923 



CU698539 




m-iT^ 



"VvO [ 



TO 



EDITH KERMIT ROOSEVELT 



He was found faithful over a few things and he was 
made ruler over many; he cut his own trail clean and 
straight and millions followed him toward the light. 

He was frail; he made himself a tower of strength. 
He was timid; he made himself a lion of courage. He 
was a dreamer; he became one of the great doers of all 
time. 

Men put their trust in him; women found a cham- 
pion in him; kings stood in awe of him, but children 
made him their playmate. 

He broke a nation s slumber with his cry, and it rose 
up. He touched the eyes of blind men with flame and 
gave them vision. Souls became swords through him; 
swords became servants of God. 

He was loyal to his country, and he exacted loyalty; 
he loved many lands, but he loved his oion land best. 

He was terrible in battle, but tender to the weak; joy- 
ous and tireless, being free from self-pity; clean with a 
cleanness that cleansed the air like a gale. 

His courtesy knew no wealth or class ; his friendship, 
no creed or color or race. His courage stood every on- 
slaught of savage beast and ruthless man, of loneliness, 
of victory, of defeat. His mind was eager, his heart was 
true, his body and spirit defiant of obstacles, ready to 
meet what might come. 

He fought injustice and tyranny; bore sorrow gallantly; 
loved all nature, bleak places, and hardy companions, 
hazardous adventure and the zest of battle. Wherever he 
went he carried his own pack ; and in the uttermost parts 
of the earth he kept his conscience for his guide. 

Hermann Hagedorn 



The Editor thanks the poets for their 
generous co-operation in the preparation of 
this volume. Valuable assistance was ren- 
dered him by Mrs. Clara Thackeray Hillman, 
Marion Couthouy Smith, and Margaret 
Boyce Bonnell. Various publishers, too, 
have kindly given copyright releases, and 
the Roosevelt Memorial Association lent 
their scrap-books and many volumes from 
their library, not otherwise accessible. The 
work could not have gone forward without 
the valuable aid of Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt 
and Mrs. Douglas Robinson, who were tire- 
less in their help and encouragement. 

Mr. Rudyard Kipling's poem, "Great- 
Heart," is included in this volume by spe- 
cial permission from him. It is copyrighted 
both in England and America, and must 
not be reprinted. Edith Wharton's "With 
the Tide" first appeared in the Saturday 
. Evening Post, and is likewise reprinted by 
the author's permission, as is also Owen 
Wister's birthday poem. Robert Under- 
wood Johnson's poem is from his " Poems," 
published in 1908 by the Century Com- 
pany. Mr. Moore's "San Juan" is from 
"Lays of Chinatown, and Other Verses," 
published in 1899 by H. Ingalls Kimball. 
Bliss Carman's "The Rough Rider" is from 



Vll 



a volume bearing that title, published and 
copyrighted by Mitchell Kennerley, and 
this poem is reproduced by special permis- 
sion. Marion Couthouy Smith's "Ballad of 
the Rough Riders" is from her volume, 
"The Electric Spirit," published by Richard 
Badger. 

It is to be regretted that the authorship 
of several anonymous tributes could not be 
traced. 

C. H. T. 



CONTENTS 

The Army's Tribute to Colonel Roosevelt 

Stars and Stripes ii 

Dedication Hermann Hagedorn vi 

Introduction Corinne Roosevelt Robinson xvii 

THE EARLY YEARS 
A Boy of Old Manhattan .... Morris Abel Beer 3 

On a Candidate Accused of Youth 

Robert Underwood Johnson 3 

On Reading of Theodore Roosevelt's Work as Police 

Commissioner (1896). . William Noble Rotjndy 4 

THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 

The Rough Rider Bliss Carman 9 

Rough Riding at El Caney. . .John Paul Bocock 13 

San Juan George Macdonald Moore 15 

Ballad of the Rough Riders 

Marion Couthouy Smith 18 

The Yankee Dude'U Do S. E. Kiser 20 

The Ballad of "Teddy's Terrors" 

Stephen French Whitman 22 

Turn Them Loose ! Anonymous 26 

Rough Riders Edwin L. Sabin 27 

The Rough Riders Arthur Guiterman 29 

On the Hill Robert Bridges 32 

ix 



CONTENTS 



IN POLITICS 

To Vice-President Roosevelt Frederic Almy 35 

Roosevelt in Wyoming Robert Bridges 36 

A Soliloquy (1901) Anonymous 37 

To Theodore Roosevelt John Hay 38 

Roosevelt's Guest Katharine Lee Bates 39 

A Portrait Harry Graham 40 

Sargent's Portrait of Theodore Roosevelt 

Margaret Ridgely Partridge 44 

The Ballad of Sagamore Hill Wallace Irwin 44 

If Roosevelt Had Been Bad 

Captain Jack Crawford 48 

Thank God for a Man ! (1904) 

Arthur Guiterman 49 

Little Orphant Teddy John Kendrick Bangs 50 

Call Him the Child of God . .William H. Draper 53 

Close to a Nation's Beating Pulse He Stands 

LisKA Stillman 54 

The President (1908) Harry Kemp 55 

"Live Thou in Nature" 

Richard Watson Gilder 55 

Who Goes There? Grace Duffie Boylan 56 

He Entereth America by the Front Door (1910) 

Wallace Irwin 57 

St. Rooseveltlus CD. 59 

His Name Pauline Frances Camp 61 

Ready for Teddy (1912) Anonymous 62 

The Cataract of T. R Franklin P. Adams 64 

An Ode to T. R Franklin P. Adams 65 



CONTENTS xi 

Lo ! He Would Lift the Burden 

William Dudley Foulke 67 

Vision (1912) . . . .Corinne Roosevelt Robinson 68 

When Teddy Hits the West 

Thaddeus C. Histed 69 
The Revealer (1912) 

Edwin Aklington Robinson 71 

To Theodore Roosevelt (1912). . William Watson 73 

IN PUBLIC LIFE 

The Progressive Julia Cooley 77 

The Man in the White House 

Frederic Lawrence Knowles 77 

The Ballad of Grizzly Gulch Wallace Irwin 78 

The Escort of the Yellowstone 

John S. M'Groarty 81 

The Unafraid John Trotwood Moore 83 

Guess Who ? (1916) Berton Braley 84 

AFTER THE PRESIDENCY 

Missing Jefferson Toombs 89 

The First Pager Guy Lee 90 

HIS TRAVELS 

"Bwana Tumbo" — The Great Hunter 

Walter Beverly Crane 95 

Enough Berton Braley 96 

The Return Walter Trumbull 97 

From Haunts of Beasts. .Joseph Bernard Retry 99 

Colonel Roosevelt in Dominica (1916) 

Richard Butler Glaenzer 100 



xli CONTENTS 



THE WORLD WAR 

To Theodore Roosevelt Owen Wister 103 

The Call of the Hour . . Marion Couthouy Smith 104 

"Roosevelt to France".. Sam (Scottt) Mortland 105 

Man of Straight Word 

Margaret Boyce Bonnell 109 

Fighting Stock Daniel Henderson 109 

ELEGIAC VERSE 

Great-Heart Rddyard Kipling 113 

With the Tide Edith Wharton 115 

At Sagamore Hill Edgar Lee Masters 117 

Small Men at Grapple with a Mighty Hour 

Richard Le Gallienne 124 

In Which Roosevelt Is Compared to Saul 

Vachel Lindsay 124 

The Spacious Days of Roosevelt 

Vachel Lindsay 126 

The A. E. F. to T. R. 

Corinne Roosevelt Robinson 127 

To My Brother. . . Corinne Roosevelt Robinson 128 

A Woman Speaks to Theodore Roosevelt's Sister 

Corinne Roosevelt Robinson 129 

The Mighty Oak Theodosia Garrison 131 

The Lion That Roosevelt Shot 

Isabel Fiske Conant 131 

On Guard Anonymous 132 

The Great, Wild, Free Soul J. A. H. 133 

Though Others Slept W. B. Gilbert 133 

"We Cannot Think of Him as of the Dead" 

John Jerome Rooney 134 



CONTENTS xiii 

A Man ! Clinton Scollard 135 

Great Is Our Grief Nina Jones 136 

"Where the Tree Falleth" 

ViLDA Sauvage Owens 136 

The Eagle Caroline Russell Bispham 138 

The Ongoing Mary Siegribt 139 

Death and Roosevelt Ernest Harold Baynes 141 

Oh, for a Son of Thy Relentless Power 

LiLBURN Harwood Townsend 141 

Gray Is the Pall of the Sky Roger Sterrett 142 

Our Lost Captain William Dudley Foulke 143 

Into the Silence William Hamilton Hayne 144 

Guardian of Thy Land 

Herman Montagu Donner 144 

Farewell ! C. H. Van Housen 145 

To a Patriot Harry T. Baker 146 

"Put Out the Light !" Vilda Sauvage Owens 147 

Leader of Men Robert Gordon Anderson 148 

He Came from Out the Void. . .Robert H. Davis 149 

Mr. Valiant Passes Over (1919) 

Amelia Josephine Burr 150 

Roosevelt John Jay Chapman 151 

Close up the Ranks ! Edward S. Van Zile 153 

Gone Is Ulysses Marie L. Eglinton 154 

Our Colonel Arthur Guiterman 155 

Roosevelt, the Leader Mary Siegrist 157 

To Eraser's Death-Mask of Roosevelt 

L. Upton Wilkinson 160 

The Star Marion Couthouy Smith 161 



xlv CONTENTS 

The Consoler Marion Couthouy Smith 161 

"Gigantic Figure of a Mighty Age" 

Leon Huhner 162 

He Hated Sham John W. Low 163 

"He Is All Ours".. .Wendell Phillips Stafford 164 

Cid of the West Edna Dean Proctor 165 

The Death of Roosevelt 

Theresa Virginia Beard 166 

Master of Hearts of Men. .John Lincoln Blauss 167 

Pilot and Prophet Charles Hanson Towne 168 

Half-mast the Flag Samuel Valentine Cole 169 

Toll the Bells Grace D. Vanamee 171 

Roosevelt Dead Robert A. Donaldson 173 

"A MoiuTiing Cloud Lies Black across the Sun" 

Anonymous 174 

A Brother Gone Gene Baker 174 

The Happy Warrior Thomas Curtis Clark 175 

Does He Hunt with the Great Orion ? 

Katharine Lee Bates 176 

"When Shall We Look upon His Like Again?" 

Mat L. Restarick 177 

Election Day (1920).. Margaret Botce Bonnell 178 

Feast of the Epiphany . . Marion Couthout Smith 179 

The Meeting Ella Grandom Smith 181 

My Kinsman Carlos Day 182 

The Beacon-Light Murray Ketcham Kirk 184 

Resurgit Theodore Clarence H. Willey 185 

"The Hunter, Tiring of the Chase" 

Edmund V4Nce Cqqwe 186 



CONTENT S XV 

"Within the Torrent's Onward Whirl" 

Mabel Kinney Hall 187 
Of Him Who Loved Not Rest 

Helen Gray Cone 187 

We Miss Him So ! William P. F. Ferguson 188 

The Riderless Horse Harold T. Pulsifer 189 

N"t Dead Minnie D. Wilbur 190 

'Tis Not Alone in Flanders Fields 

McLandburgh Wilson 190 
We Need No Marble Shaft. .Hiram Moe Greene 191 

Tbe Stag J. Corson Miller 192 

America's Triumvirate Isabel Fiske Conant 192 

Ring down Life's Mammoth Curtain 

J. Corson Miller 193 

Apotheosis Russell J. Wilbur 195 

The Courier Margaret de Kay 197 

WTien He Died Ethel Brooks Stillwell 197 

"Whose Spirit Is Sped" Dean Collins 198 

"I Wonder if He Knows It". .Wilbur D. Nesbit 200 

His Last Words Edith Daley 201 

January 6. 1919 Julian Street 202 

MEMORIALS 

^'^ D^y William Samuel Johnson 205 

In the Cove Maky Fanny Youngs 205 

Sagamore Coletta Ryan 206 

The Shrine of the Lion W. E. Brooks 207 

Roosevelt Hermann Hagedorn 212 

In Memoriam George Douglass 213 



xvi CONTENTS 

Where Roosevelt Sleeps Harry Varley 215 

The Minute-Guns W. S. Thayer 218 

Theodore Roosevelt's Letters to His Children 

Arthur Guiterman 220 

Ode in Memory of Theodore Roosevelt 

Rudolph Altkocchi 221 

In Memoriam — ^Theodore Roosevelt 

Annette Kohn 223 

Our Roosevelt Mary Dillingham Frear 224 

The Grave of Roosevelt Snow Longley 225 

Sagamore Corinne Roosevelt Robinson 226 

Index 229 



INTRODUCTION 

CHORTLY after the death of my brother, 
Theodore Roosevelt, many people began 
to collect poems written about him at the 
time. Amongst others, Mrs. Clara Thack- 
eray Hillman took great pains to gather as 
many as she could find. She has kindly 
passed her collection on to Mr. Charles 
Hanson Towne and myself. We were able 
to make valuable additions to it, and we also 
decided not to hmit the proposed volume 
to elegiac poems, as it seemed inappropriate 
that one who, we felt, would always be so 
living a personality, should be known in 
verse only by poems commemorative of his 
death. 

Theodore Roosevelt had always been a 
romantic figure, and the poets had felt him 
to be so almost from the beginning of his 
varied career. 

There was something from the first of 
the legendary about him; and when one 
thought of him, the figures of Roland and 
Siegfried and Olaf came swiftly to mind. 
Poets love the adventurous spirit, and 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

delight in the unforeseen and the dramatic, 
and no other pubhc man of our day has ever 
— perhaps for these very reasons — appealed 
to them so much. 

He, himself, was a great lover of poetry. 
As a young boy, in his school-days in 
Dresden, he would recite with ardor Korner's 
"Song of the Sword," or parts of the 
Nibelungenlied. The "Chanson de Ro- 
land" was often on his lips, as was Brown- 
ing's "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower 
Came." I can still hear him chanting 
Longfellow's "Saga of King Olaf," or 
Swinburne's "Forsaken Garden," or later 
still Kipling's "Ballad of the Three Sealers." 
He loved the long swing of sonorous lines 
such as those in Browning's "Saul," or 
quaint old singing ballads like "Sir Patrick 
Spens," and many in Percy's Reliques, and 
he delighted in Edgar Allan Poe's weird, 
cryptic music. 

As a freshman in Harvard College he 
frequently gathered his friends about him 
in his rooms in the evening, and, after 
sparring and wrestling for a while, the young 
men would have what he called a "coffee 
party." Thus refreshed, they would settle 
down to an hour or two with the poets. 
After one such occasion he wrote me with 
satisfaction of having initiated some of his 



INTRODUCTION xix 



less literary classmates into the delights of 
Tennyson and Poe. 

He loved the poets, and it was not strange 
that they, too, should have loved him. 

Just as he laughed heartily at the cartoons 
of himself that from time to time appeared 
in the newspapers, so, too, he would be 
much amused at some rhymed skit accentu- 
ating some one of his unusual actions. 

Pleased, also, he was at the ringing bal- 
lads inspired by his courageous efforts 
during the Spanish-American War, when 
his picturesque regiment of Rough Riders, 
led by their beloved Colonel, gained such a 
hold upon the imagination of the people 
of the United States that their name be- 
came synonymous with Romance itself. 

His knowledge of the modern poets was 
extraordinary. How he found time to read 
and know their work, in so accurate a 
fashion, surprised even me. 

Immersed as he was in the most active 
of public lives, with endless calls upon his 
time and attention, and making equally 
endless responses to these calls, he neverthe- 
less missed no opportunity to make himself 
conversant with the new work of the singers; 
nor, indeed, did he ever fail to lend them 
material assistance when possible. 

One afternoon, shortly before his serious 



XX INTRODUCTION 

illness in February, 1918, he met, at my 
house, a number of verse-writers, and each 
and all, after a brief conversation with him, 
turned away astonished at his familiarity 
with their work and his power of quoting 
large portions of it. 

As President of the United States, the 
poets were always welcome at the White 
House, or at Sagamore Hill. Yeats, Mase- 
field, Noyes, Edwin Arlington Robinson, 
Edgar Lee Masters, Bliss Carman, Madison 
Cawein, Hermann Hagedorn, Charles Han- 
son Towne, and many others were ever 
warmly received. 

I, myself, had the pleasure of introducing 
to him both John Masefield and Edgar Lee 
Masters. The former motored with me to 
Sagamore Hill for luncheon, and afterward 
he spoke with interest of the way in which 
Colonel Roosevelt not only knew his poems 
from cover to cover, but was familiar also 
with the quaint pieces of almost unknown 
history upon which many of his stories in 
verse were founded. My brother was 
deeply interested in Mr. Masters 's striking 
"Spoon River Anthology," but earnestly 
exhorted him to show more of the beautiful 
side of life and more of the finer character- 
istics which he always maintained were to 
be found in human nature. After his first 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

meeting with Mr. Masters he was anxious 
to have more talk with this poet whose 
power he gladly acknowledged; and the 
result was that visit to Sagamore Hill, 
which enabled Mr. Masters to paint Theo- 
dore Roosevelt at his home in so vivid a 
manner. 

As I have said, Mr. Towne and I did not 
feel that so vital a spirit could be portrayed 
only by the poetry, no matter how exalted, 
written in grief at my brother's passing; 
and so we have compiled this Anthology of 
verse which depicts not only the sorrow 
and indeed despair of a great nation at the 
loss of one of her most trusted leaders and 
beloved sons, but which includes also the 
more homely, the more humorous, the 
merrier sketches in which are shown the 
tenderness and gaiety that he likewise in- 
spired. 

We are convinced that in having pre- 
sented in condensed form the story of 
Theodore Roosevelt as the poets saw him, 
we have given to the public a kaleidoscopic 
viev/ of his public career. If one should 
read this collection, and nothing more, one 
could still get a comprehensive idea of the 
love of the people for this man of manifold 
and generous activities. 

We laugh with one poet, we weep with 



xxii INTRODUCTION 

another; and with burning eyes and throb- 
bing hearts we rise to the heights of Edith 
Wharton's "With the Tide," or Rudyard 
KipHng's "Great-Heart." 

Surely there never was penned a truer 
word in this critical moment of the history 
of all nations than 

"Oh, our world is none the safer 
Now Great-Heart hath died ! " 

CoRiNNE Roosevelt Robinson. 

November, 1922. 



THE EARLY YEARS 



A BOY OF OLD MANHATTAN 

A BOY of old Manhattan, 

A boy as you and I, 
Once watched its towers rising 
Until they spanned the sky. 

A boy of old Manhattan, 
With granite in his soul. 

Beheld the star of Lincoln 
Above his steepled goal. 

A boy of old Manhattan 
Built upward hour by hour; 

The edifice he visioned 
Became a nation's tower ! 

Morris Abel Beer 

ON A CANDroATE ACCUSED OF 
YOUTH 

Theodore Roosevelt, 1886 

"THOO young," do they call him? Who 

say it? Not they 
Who have felt his hard stroke in the civic 

afiFray, 
When elders, whom veteran fighters had 

taught 
Till they knew all the rules by which battles 

are fought, 
Fumbled weakly with weapons his foresight 

had sought. 

3 



ROOSEVELT 



Who thinks of his youthfulness ? Surely 

not they 
Who stood at his side through the wavering 

day, 
And knew the quick vision, the planning 

exact 
Of parry and thrust, till the stout helmet 

cracked 
'Neath the bold and true blow that is better 

than tact. 

Yea, the strength of the arm is the strength 

of its use, 
Not its years; and when fighting is on, 

better choose 
Not the rust-eaten sword from the library 

wall. 
But the new blade that leaps in its sheath 

at the call. 
Ask the foe by which weapon he fears more 

to fall ! 

Robert Underwood Johnson 

ON READING OF THEODORE ROOSE- 
VELT'S WORK AS POLICE 
COMMISSIONER 

(1896) 

"|\/f EN of his mould arouse the dawdling 

daj's — 
Rough, ready men whose mood is ever the 
same; 



THE EARLY YEARS 



Unheeding scorn; unmoved by love or fame. 
Above the realms of common prayer or 

praise 
Who tread in silent solitude their ways; 
Who take life as a duty, not a game, 
Who seek for work amid earth's cheap ac- 
claim. 
While o'er them peaceful Death holds high 
Life's bays. 

It is a sight to see men of such breed; 
Men of this old and simple-minded mien; 
Who look first to the great world's foremost 

need, 
Who mask no honest thought behind Tact's 

screen, 
But speak out like a soul that newly wakes 
To war for God till Wrong or Error quakes. 
William Noble Roundy 



THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 



THE ROUGH RIDER 

V^HERE lift the peaks of purple, 

Where dip the dusty trails, 
Where gleaming, teeming cities 
Lie linked by shining rails, 
By shadow-haunted camp-fire. 
Beneath the great white dome. 
In saddle and in council 
Intrepid and at home, 

Who is the hardy figure 
Of virile fighting strain. 
With valor and conviction 
In heart, and hand, and brain? 
Sprung from our old ideals 
To serve our later needs. 
He is the modern Roundhead, 
The man who rides and reads. 

No pomp of braid and feathers. 

No flash of burnished gear. 

He wears the plainsman's outfit, 

SuflScient and severe. 

With no imperial chevron 

Upon his khaki sleeve. 

He thinks by no made doctrine, 

He speaks by no man's leave. 

The breed and creed and schooling 
Of Harvard and the plains, 
Six hundred years of fighting 
9 



10 ROOSEVELT 



For freedom in his veins, 
Let no one think to wheedle. 
To buy, coerce, or cheat, 
The man who loves the open. 
The man who knows the street. 

He rides not for vainglory. 
He fights not for low gain, 
But that the range of freedom 
Unravaged shall remain. 
As plain as Bible language 
And open as the day, 
He challenges injustice. 
And bids corruption stay. 

Take up, who will, the challenge; 

Stand pat on graft and greed; 

Grow sleek on others' labor. 

Surfeit on others' need; 

Let paid and bloodless tricksters 

Devise a legal way 

Our common right and justice 

"To sell, deny, delay." 

Not yesterday nor lightly 
We came to know that breed; 
Our quarrel with that cunning 
Is old as Runnymede. 
We saw enfranchised insult 
Deploy in kingly line, 
When broke our sullen fury 
On Rupert of the Rhine. 



THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 11 

At Newbury and Worcester, 
Edgehill and Marston Moor, 
We got the stubborn courage 
To dare and to endure. 
From Ireton and Cromwell 
We learned the sword and rein; 
Free speech by truth made fearless. 
From Hampden, Pym* and Vane. 

A thousand years in peril, 

By privilege oppressed. 

With loss beyond requital. 

Unflinching in our quest. 

We sought and bought our freedom 

And bore it oversea; 

To keep it still unblighted. 

We rode with Grant and Lee. 

Now, masking raid and rapine 
In debonair disguise. 
The foe we thought defeated 
Deludes our careless eyes. 
Intrenched in law and largess 
And the vested "HTong of things, 
Cloaking a fouler treason 
Than any faithless king's. 

He takes our life for wages, 
He holds our land for rent. 
He sweats our little children 
To swell his cent per cent; 



n ROOSEVELT 



With secret grip and levy- 
On every crumb we eat. 
He drives our sons to thieving. 
Our daughters to the street. 

He lightly sells his honor, 
He boldly shames our pride, 
And makes our cause a scandal 
For the nations to deride. 
So crafty, yet so craven ! 
One whisper through the mart 
Can send him to his coffers 
With panic in his heart. 

With no such feeble rancor 

As envy moves to hate. 

No ignorant detraction 

Of goodly things and great, 

But with the wrath unbridled 

Of patriots betrayed, — 

Of workers duped by brokers, 

Of brothers unafraid, — 

Against the grim defenses 
Where might and murrain hide. 
Unswerving to the issue 
Loose-reined and rough we ride 
Full tardily, to rescue 
Our heritage from wrong, 
And 'stablish it on manhood, 
A thousand times more strong. 



THE SP ANISH-AMERICAN WAR 13 

Comes now the fearless Message, 

The leader, and the time 

For every man to muster 

For honor or for crime. 

WTio would not ride beside him 

Into the toughest fight — 

For freedom, the republic. 

And everlasting right ! 

Bliss Carman 

ROUGH RIDING AT EL CANEY 

IT was on July the first. 

In the year of '98, 
WTien the shells began to burst. 
And the air to palpitate 
With blood and heat and Santiago stenches. 
That a four-eyed man in buff, 
With a smile 'twas good to see. 
Yelled, "You riders in the rough, 
Will you climb that hill with me. 
And drive those bloody Dagoes from their 
trenches?" 

Then all the rough riders said, "Yes, sir, we 

will! 
With the greatest of pleasure we'll charge 

up that hill. 
Wherever there's scrapping we're bound to 

be there; 
You lead, and we'll wallop those Spaniards 

for fair !" 



14 ROOSEVELT 



Then the shells began to rain, 

And the Mauser's shot to kill. 

But the men thought of the Maine, 

And they went on up the hill, 

A-singing of the "Star-Spangled Banner." 

And they laughed, and shot, and swore 

They would climb that hill behind him, 

If they had to swim in gore 

And go halves with hell to find him — 

Our Teddy rode in such a handsome manner. 

Just then— biff!— a bullet knocks over his 

horse. 
But Teddy jumped off him, right side up, 

of course ! 
And he brandished his sword and went on 

up that hill. 
With a yell that the Spaniards are shaking 

at still. 

Oh, we swarmed along the crest 

Of the hill of El Caney; 

And our bravest and our best 

Shed their blood that fearful day. 

But they drove the flying Spaniards all 

before them ! 
And they didn't care a cuss 
For a bullet more or less. 
And they didn't make a fuss 
When they fell and died there, yes — 
With the Star-Spangled Banner flying o'er 

^^^^ ' John Paul Bocock 



THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 15 



SAN JUAN 

^ HEALTH to you, Teddy, 
A victor already — 
The Spaniards before you don't know you, 
old man — 

The brain and the vigor 
That glow in your figure, 
The courage and brawn in your picturesque 
clan, 

'Twill be a wild meeting — 
A Kilkenny greeting — 
When you're introduced on the heights of 
San Juan. 

I picture you, Teddy, 

You scarce can stand steady, 
A roused lion balancing, ready to spring — 

To men of the Don set, 

To parry your onset, 
Your rough bronco riders will not do a 
thing — 

Save to shoot and to sabre, 

To club and belabor. 
Like devils incarnate to sweep down their 
wing. 

For we know you, Teddy ! — 
When riled, slightly heady, 
A stone wall or chevaux de frise would not 
stay — 

The spur of a trocha 



16 ROOSEVELT 



Would be but a joke, a 
Mere burr to a mustang to prick on to fray; 

Wow! nothing could curb you, 

Affright or perturb you — 
"To hell with Spain's misrule !" I fancy you 
say. 

Up-hill dashes Teddy, 

The bullets of lead he 
Despises as paper wads hurtled with force — 

The shells that burst near him, 

Nor touch him nor queer him. 
The death of his charger delays not his 
course — 

(If that nag had his spirit, 

Or anything near it, 
The U. S. has lost there a mighty good horse). 

In faUing, jumps Teddy, 
"Quick, follow me!" said he. 

And waving his sword he runs on ahead 
still- 
Before him, behind him. 
Each side him to blind him, 

Were't not for his glasses the dust of the hill 
Arises as bullets, 
From mole-hills and gullets. 

Though others drop stricken, they do him 
no ill. 

The foe watches Teddy, 
Expecting that dead he 



THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 17 

Will tumble, but really that's not Teddy's 
game — 

The Spaniards, in fighting. 
Fire once upon sighting, 
And then flee to cover — retreat is no shame; 
If Teddy's polite, too. 
And all his men right, too, 
Spain thinks they should battle exactly the 
same. 

But, lo ! they saw Teddy 
Advance as they fled; he 
Kept on with his men till they reached the 
hilltop. 

In face of all firing. 
They charged, still untiring. 
No matter who's wounded, no Yankee would 
stop. 

"The Devil is leading!" 
The Dons clamored, pleading, 
**If we remain here he will have a new 
crop." 

All honor to Teddy, 
And those that he led! He 
Fought manfully on till the conflict was 
won — 

Till Spain ceased resistance. 
And in the far distance 
Found safety and shield from the Rough 
Rider's gun. 

It was a great skirmish, 



18 ROOS EVELT 

And Weyler felt squirmish 
To hear (safe at home) how his puppets 
could run. ^^^^^^ Macdonald Moore 

BALLAD OF THE ROUGH RIDERS 

\\TE heard the sound of galloping feet, 

It struck to the nation's soul; 
In the far Southwest we heard them beat; 
Their echoes swept through the city street. 
With a rhythmic thunder-roll. 
Forward swing, forward swing, 
Strong and light as an eagle's wing, 
For the flag. 

These are they who have heard the call 

Of a voice their spirits knew; 
They who follow, to fight or fall. 
One who is bravest and best of all 
To the young, the swift, the true. 
Forward swing, forward swing. 
Each has only a life to bring 
To the flag. 

These are the men whose hearts are rife 

With the stress of the daring chase; 
These are the flower of the nation's life, 
Picked men all, for the desperate strife, 
Sons of a mettled race. 

Forward swing, forward swing. 
Whose but these can such leaders bring 
To the flag? 



THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 19 

Hark ! there is scarce a hoof -beat's sound 

In the tropic thickets deep; 
All unhorsed are the riders found; 
Wearily over the burning ground 
Their steadfast footsteps creep. 
Still they swing, forward swing 
Dauntless, grim, unfaltering, 
With the flag. 

Straight they march on the hidden foe, 

Capron's troop in the van; 
Under the maddening fire they go; 
See — ^^^•ho falls .'* Must the best blood flow ? 
Ay — it is but a man ! 

Forward swing, forward swing; 
Ah, what glorious lives we fling 
To the flag! 

On, till the thorny ground is won. 

Snatched by the eager bands. 
What of the fight when all is done? 
The foe shall answer: "They tried, each one. 
To seize us vnth. their hands ! " 
Forward swing, forward swing, 
New brave work shall the morrow bring 
For the flag. 

For lo ! when the army sweeps along 

To the bloody hilltop's crest. 
Climbing and conquering, thousands strong. 
There do the unhorsed riders throng, 

Up, with the first and best. 



20 ROOSEVELT 

Forward swing, forward swing. 
Living, follow — and dying, cling 
To the flag. 

Sounding still, with an echo sweet, 

Through the nation's inmost soul. 
We hear the tramp of those toiling feet, 
And the hoofs of the leader's horse, that beat 
With a rhythmic thunder-roll. 
Forward swing, forward swing. 
Such are the hearts, the lives, we bring 
For the flag! 

Marion Couthouy Smith 



WHl 



THE YANKEE DUDE'LL DO 

[EN Cholly swung his golf-sticks on 
the links. 

Or knocked the tennis-ball across the net, 
With his bangs done up in cunning little 
kinks — 
When he wore the tallest collar he could 

get, 
Oh, it was the fashion then 
To impale him on the pen. 

To regard him as a being made of putty 
through and through; 
But his racket's laid away. 
He is roughing it to-day. 

And heroically proving that the Yankee 
dude'U do! 



TEE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 21 

When Algj% as some knight of old ar- 
rayed, 
Was the leading figure at the "fawncy 
ball," 
We loathed him for the silly part he 
played; 
He was set down as a monkey — that was 
all! 
Oh, we looked upon him then 
As unfit to class with men, 

As one whose heart was putty, and whose 
brains were made of glue. 
But he's thrown his cane away, 
And he grasps a gun to-day. 

While the world beholds him, knowing 
that the Yankee dude'll do! 

When Clarence cruised about upon his 
yacht. 
Or drove out with his footman through the 
park, 
His mama, it was generally thought. 
Ought to have him in her keeping after 
dark! 
Oh, we ridiculed him then, 
We impaled him on the pen, 

We thought he was effeminate — we dubbed 
him "Sissy," too; 
But he nobly marched away — 
He is eating pork to-day. 

And heroically proving that the Yankee 
dude'll do! 



22 ROOSEVELT 



How they hurled themselves against the 
angry foe, 
In the jungle and the trenches on the hill ! 
When the word to charge was given, every 
dude was on the go — 
He was there to die, to capture or to kill ! 
Oh, he struck his level when 
Men were called upon again 

To preserve the ancient glory of the old 
Red, White and Blue! 
He has thrown his spats away, 
He is wearing spurs to-day, 

And the world will please take notice that 
the Yankee dude'U do! 

S. E. Riser 

THE BALLAD OF "TEDDY'S TERRORS" 

As Related by Round-Up Rube of Rattlesnake 
Gulch 

HERE wus a lovely regiment whose 
men wus strong and stout, 
Fer some, they had diplomas and fer some 

wus warrants out, 
An' Wood, he was their colonel bold, an* 

Teddy was his mate. 
An' they called 'em "Teddy's Lambkins," 
fer their gentleness was great. 

Now a good ole man named Shafter says to 

Teddy and to Wood: 
"There's a joint called Santiago where we 

ain't well understood; 



T 



TEE SPANISH- AMERICAN WAR 23 



So, take yer lamblike regiment, an' if you 

are polite 
I think yer gentle little ways'll set the matter 

right." 

So, when Teddy's boys got movin' an' the 

sun was on the fry, 
An' the atmosphere was coaxin' them to 

lay right down and die. 
Some gents from Santiago who wus mad 

'cause they wus there, 
Lay down behind some bushes to put bullets 

through their hair. 

Now, Teddy's happy Sunday-school wus 

movin' on its way 
A-seekin' in its peaceful style some Dagoes 

fer to slay; 
And the gents from Santiago, with aversion 

in their heart, 
Wus hidin' at the crossroads fer to blow 

'em all apart. 

There's a Spanish comic paper that has give 

us sundry digs, 
A-caUin' of us cowards an' dishonest Yankee 

pigs; 
An' I guess these folks had read it, an' 

had thought 'twould be immense 
Jest to paralize them lambkins they was 

runnin' up agains'. 



24 ROOSEVELT 



So when our boys had pretty near arrived 

where they wus at. 
An' the time it was propitious fer to start 

that there combat, 
They let 'er fly, a-thinkin' they would make 

a dreadful tear, 
An' then rubbernecked to see if any Yankee 

wus still there. 

Now you can well imagine wot a dreadful 

start they had 
To see 'em still a-standin' there and lookin' 

bold and bad, 
Fer when this gentle regiment had heard 

the bullets fly. 
They had a vi'lent hankerin' to make them 

Spaniards die. 

So Teddy, he came runnin' with his glasses 

on his nose. 
An' when the Spanish saw his teeth you 

may well believe they froze; 
An' Wood was there 'long with 'im, with 

his cheese-knife in his hand, 
While at their heels came yellin' all that 

peaceful, gentle band. 

They fought them bloody Spaniards at 

their own familiar game, 
An' the gents from Santiago didn't like it 

quite the same — 



THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 25 

Fer you plug yer next-door neighbor with 

a rifle-ball or two, 
And he don't feel so robustous as when 

he's a-pluggin' you ! 

So when the shells wus hoppin', while the 

breech-blocks clicked an' smoked, 
An' the powder wouldn't blow away until 

a feller choked, 
That regiment of Yankee pigs wus gunnin' 

through the bush, 
An' raisin' merry hell with that there 

Santiago push. 

Then Teddy seen 'em runnin', an' he give 

a monstrous bawl. 
An' grabbed a red-hot rifle where a guy had 

let it fall. 
An' fixin' of his spectacles more firmly on 

his face, 
He started to assassinate them all around 

the place. 

So through the scrubby underbrush from 

bay 'n't plant to tree. 
Where the thorns would rip a feller's pants, 

a shockin' sight to see. 
He led his boys a-dancin' on, a-shoutin' 

left and right, 
An' not missin' many Spanish knobs that 

shoved 'emselves in sight. 



26 ROOSEVELT 

An' when them Santiago gents wus finished 

to their cost, 
Then Teddy's boys, they took a look and 

found that they wus lost. 
An' as their cruel enemies wus freed from 

earthly pain, 
They all sat down to wait fer friends to 

lead 'em back again. 

MORAL 

That's the tale of Teddy's Terrors and the 

valiant deed they done. 
But all tales, they should have morals, so 

o' course this tale has one. 
So paste this idea in yer cage, wotever else 

you do, 
Fer perhaps you'll thank me fer it before 

yer game is through: — 
The soldier boy that wears the blue is 

gentle-like and meek, 
But I doubt he'll mind the Bible, if you 

soak him on the cheek; 
An' should you git him riled a bit, you want 

to have a care, 
Fer if he ever starts to fight he'll finish — 

Gawd knows where ! 

Stephen French Whitman 

TURN THEM LOOSE! 

'M'OW turn loose Teddy Roosevelt, 

Him and his chargers bold, 
Each dressed in buckskin trousers. 



THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 27 

All trimmed with braid and gold ! 
Let's hear the rhythmic rattle 

Of clanking chain and spurs. 
The while they speed across the plain 

To swipe the Spanish curs ! 

Brave boys with lungs of leather. 

And muscles strong and tough. 
With flashing eye and daring mien 

And style and manner rough; 
They'll do fine execution 

Against the Spanish mobs, 
And then come home with loads of fame 

And glory in great gobs ! 

Yes, turn loose Teddy Roosevelt, 

Him and his riders rough. 
And let us cheer them on the way. 

For truly they're the stuff; 
For truly they're the stuff, my boys. 

With quirt and spur and gun. 
So turn them loose and let us see 

The blooming Spaniards run ! 

Anonymous 



ROUGH RIDERS 

tj^ROM where the chaparrals uplift 

O'er Texan sea of grass; 
From Arizona canyoned rift. 
And Colorado pass; 



28 ROOSEVELT 

From Boston elm and classic shade, 

And Gotham mask and ball, 
We've gathered, by one motive swayed — 

Rough Riders are we all ! 

We ken the ways of man and beast — 

We've faced the prairie Death, 
We've watched the buzzards at their feast. 

We've felt the Norther's breath; 
We know the realms of belles and beaux, 

And Fashion's gay command; 
Our view lies from Delmonico's 

Clear to the Rio Grande. 

But now, unchecked, the cattle whirl 

In headlong, wild stampede; 
And Beauty's banner may unfurl 

In vain — we give no heed. 
We've changed the ranch and city charms 

For Cuban thatch and palm; 
The jarring roll of hostile arms 

Our paean is, and psalm. 

In strangely differing clime and place 

Our names and paths appear. 
For many a college knows our face. 

And many a branded steer. 
But lo ! one blood you find us, when 

There sounds Columbia's call. 
We spring to answer it, like men — 

Rough Riders are we all ! 

Edwin L. Sabin 



THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 29 

THE ROUGH RIDERS 

PJROADCLOTH, buckskin, coat of blue or 

tan. 
Strip it off for action, and beneath you'll find 

a man. 
The boy that bucked the centre and the lad 

that roped the steer 
Chum in fighting-fellowship — charging with 

a cheer. 

Their horses are picketed leagues away, 

Their sabres are on the nail; 
They have taken the rifle at break of 
day, 

They have taken the narrow trail. 

The shimmering blade of the bayonet 

Is red with the dawning sun; 
'Twill burn with a ruddier crimson yet 

Or ever the work is done. 

"Now, why do the scavenger grave-crabs 

go 
A-cluttering down the dell.''" 
"Oh, ask of the vulture hovering low; 
It may be that he can tell." 

"Is yonder the gleam of a mountain stream 
'Mid boscage, creeper and root?" 

"Quick! drop ye down in the jungle brown 
And cuddle your stock and shoot ! " 



30 ROOSEVELT 



The hunters stripped to the cartridge-belt 
And stalked in the seething maze, 

The Indian fighters crawled and knelt 
And pulled at the rifle-blaze. 

Kentucky fought with a grim delight 

And Texas with his soul; 
But the football rusher reared his height 

And plunged for the deadly goal. 

They yelled disdain of the driving rain 
Of steel that drilled and tore. 

If the wounded sobbed it was not from 
pain, 
But that they could fight no more. 

Then volleying low at the hidden foe, 
They rushed him — two to ten; 

They were trained in the rule of an iron 
school. 
And they were their Colonel's men. 

From thicket to thicket, and glade to glade, 
And out to the jungle's marge, 

They harried him back o'er a clotted track 
And formed for the final charge. 

Hark to the swell of the Rebel yell. 

The bugle calm and clear. 
The "uh-luh-luh-loo" of the tameless Sioux 

And the roar of the Saxon cheer. 



THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 31 

The Baresark awoke in the Teuton folk; 

The Roman was born anew; 
The pride of the blood of the Maecabee 

Revived in the fighting Jew; 

While, up on the right, like a storm at night, 

Rilled with a living flame. 
Their eyes ashine, in a steadfast line, 

The Negro troopers came. 

Sons of the Past ! — her best and last — 

At Freedom's bugle-call 
The Races sweep to the conquered keep 

The flag that shelters all. 

In peace ye prate of the needs of state 
And winnow your meagre souls, 

Refining if this be truly great, 
And quake at clouded goals. 

When we trust our weal to the clashing steel. 
The land calls forth her own. 

Then it's ho ! for the men of heart and brain 
And blood and brawn and bone. 

Broadcloth, buckskin, garb of blue or tan, — 
Rip it udth a bullet and beneath you'll find a 

man. 
Ebon-featured regular, swarthy volunteer. 
Chum in fighting-fellowship — charging with a 

cheer. 

Arthur Guiterman 



ROOSEVELT 



ON THE HILL 

(July 1, 1898) 

"My men were children of the dragon's blood." 

The Rough Riders. 

TTHERE on the summit was your " crowded 
hour"; — 
The wine of Hfe poured out in one swift 

draft, 
The joy of battle which you gaily quaffed. 
The cheers of comrades and the thrill of 

power. 
The dragon's blood there bloomed in crim- 
son flower; 
From west and east had come the vital 

seed 
Garnered in glory for the Nation's need; 
The "fighting edge" of heroes was their 
dower. 

Now hand to hand you strive with sterner 
foes; 
You lead where few before have tried to 

lead, 
And rashly dare to check unbridled greed, 
While doubters scoff and magnify their woes. 
On your brave summit you have waged 

the fight; 
Unwearied, you have battled for the 
Right. 

Robert Bridges 



IN POLITICS 



TO VICE-PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 

(Read June 26, 1900, at the Twentieth Anniversary of 
the Class of '80, Harvard College) 

TF '80's scribe had to express 

The sentiments he knows he felt, 
This would he say, no more, no less: 
Our one great Vice is Roosevelt. 

He takes the path of splendid Vice 
And leaves the gubernatorship. 

No Plattitude his act; he feels 
A Nation's strong dictatorship. 

God's Nation called (not Godkin's) and 

Our governor ungovernable 
Rose once again to serve his land. 

Else were he with us here at table. 

And think of this ! He owns a word, 

By title far from tenuous. 
And lexicons must soon record 

A synonym for strenuous. 

For when a man does any work 
Right sturdily and steadily. 

They'll coin a word from '80's mint 
And say he does it Teddily. 

With constant, warm fraternal faith 
We praise his moral attitude. 
35 



ROOSEVELT 



We trust our comrade, for we know 
His longitude and latitude. 

Frederic Almy 

ROOSEVELT IN WYOMING 

(Told by a guide-1899) 
■^^0 you know Yancey's? Where the 
winding trail 
From Washburn Mountains strikes the 
old stage road? 
And wagons from Cooke City and the mail 
Unhitch awhile and teamsters shift the 
load? 

A handy bunch of men are round the stove 
At Yancey's — ^hunters back from Jack- 
son's hole 

And Ed Hough telling of a mighty drove 
Of elk that he ran down at Teton Bowl. 

And Yancey he says: "Mr. Woody there 
Can tell a hunting yarn or two beside. 

He guided Roosevelt when he shot a bear 
And six bull elk with antlers spreading 
wide." 

But Woody is a guide who doesn't brag. 
He puffed his pipe awhile, then gravely 
said: 
"I knew he'd put the Spaniards in a bag, 
For Mister Roosevelt always picked a 
head. 



IN POLITICS 37 

"That man won't slosh around in politics 

And waste his time a-killing little game; 

He studies elk, and men, and knows their 

tricks, 

And when he picks a head he hits the 

same." 

Now, down at Yancey's every man's a sport. 
And free to back his knowledge up with 
lead; 

And each believes that Roosevelt is the sort 
To run the State, because he "picks a 

Robert Bridges 

A SOLILOQUY 

(1901) 
This poem was sent to Mrs. Roosevelt some years 
ago by the late Richard Harding Davis, who said: "I 
think it deserves a place in the scrapbook. I like the 
last three words especially." Editor. 

AT first the infant 

Doubling his fists and countering on 
the nurse's jaw. 
Then the school-boy with his padded mitts. 
Punching the bag and licking all his class. 
And then the ranchman, sleeping on the turf, 
Living on dried buffalo and knocking down 
And sitting on the cowboy ! Full of vim 
And biting nails in two for fun. Then the 

soldier 
Scattering great armies with his awful look, 



38 ROOSEVELT 



Dashing up hills through deadly showers of 

lead 
And smiling as it were the harmless sport 
Of some enchanting summer's holiday. 
Next the grim Governor, defying lobbyists, 
Confounding bosses, writing histories 
With one hand tied behind him, speaking to 
The multitudes in spite of flying rocks 
And whirling bricks ! Shouting defiance at 

the tough. 
And brandishing his fists full in the bully's 

face. 
And then the hunter, strangling wild beasts. 
Tying the mountain lion in a knot 
And hurling it across the precipice. 
Last scene of all, Vice-President, 
Sitting with nodding head and limbs re- 
laxed. 
Hearing the oft-repeated tales 
Of Isthmian canals and subsidies 
And Sampson-Schley affairs — in mere ob- 
livion. 
Sans mitts, sans spurs, sans guns, sans — ay, 

but wait. J 

Anonymous 

TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

(Christmas Eve. 1902) 

CON of a sire whose heart beat ever true 

To God, to country and the fireside love 

To which returning, like a homing dove, 

From each high duty done, he gladly flew. 



IN POLITICS 39 



Complete, yet touched by genius through 

and through, 

The lofty qualities that made him great, 

Loved in his home and priceless to the 

state. 

By heaven's grace are garnered up in you. 

Be yours— we pray— the dauntless heart of 

youth. 

The eye to see the humor of the game — 

The scorn of lies, the large Batavian mirth; 

And— past the happy, fruitful years of 

fame. 

Of sport and work and battle for the truth, 

A home not all unlike your home on earth. 

John Hay 



ROOSEVELT'S GUEST 



T 



HERE is a cry abroad that the President 

of the Nation 
Asked another strong man, Booker Wash- 
ington, home to dine. 
I'll swear there is not a seraph would have 
flouted an invitation 
To join the party, nor counted his whitest 
of robes too fine. 

Let only a better patriot gird at that guest 
of honor, 
Only the hands more helpful shrink from 
his dusky hand, 



40 ROOSEVELT 

To the fund of human service let only a 
larger donor 
Than Booker Washington scorn him, 
guest of the Best of the Land. 

Katharine Lee Bates 



A PORTRAIT 

A LERT as bird or early worm, 

Yet gifted with those courtly ways 
Which connoisseurs correctly term 

The tout-c'qu'-il-y-a de Louis Seize; 
He reigns, by popular assent, 
The People's peerless President! 

Behold him! Squarely built and small; 

With hands that would resemble Liszt's, 
Did they not forcibly recall 

The contour of Fitzsimmons' fists; 
Beneath whose velvet gloves you feel 
The politician's grip of steel. 

Accomplished as a King should be 

And autocratic as a Czar, 
To him all classes bow the knee. 

In spotless Washington afar; 
And while his jealous rivals scoff. 
He wears the smile-that-won't-come-off. 

In him combined we critics find 
The diplomatic skill of Choate, 



7A^ POLITICS 41 

Elijah Dowie's breadth of mind, 

And Chauncey's fund of anecdote; 
He joins the morals of Susannah 
To Dr. Munyon's bedside manner. 

The rugged virtues of his race 
He softens with a Dewey's tact, 

Combining Shafter's easy grace 

With all Bourke Cockran's love of fact; 

To Dooley's pow'rs of observation 

He adds the charm of Carrie Nation. 

In him we see a devotee 

Of what is called the "simple life" 
(To tell the naked Truth, and be 

Contented with a single wife). 
Luxurious living he abhors. 
And takes his pleasures out-of-doors. 

And, since his sole delight and pride 

Are exercise and open air, 
His spirit chafes at being tied 

All day to an official chair; 
The bell-boys (in the room beneath) 
Can hear him gnash his serried teeth. 

In summer-time he can't resist 

A country gallop on his cob, 
So, like a thorough altruist. 

He lets another do his job; 
In winter he will work all day. 
But when the sun shines he makes Hay. 



42 ROOSEVELT 



And thus, in spite of ofBce ties, 

He manages to take a lot 
Of healthy outdoor exercise. 

Where other Presidents have not; 
As I can prove by drawing your 
Attention to his carte du jour. 

At 6 A. M. he shoots a bear, 
At 8 he schools a restive horse, 

From 10 to 4 he takes the air, — 
(He doesn't take it all, of course); 

And then at 5 o'clock, maybe, 

Some colored man drops in to tea. 

At intervals throughout the day 
He sprints around the house, or if 

His residence is Oyster Bay, 

He races up and down the cliff; 

While sea-gulls scream about his legs, 

Or hasten home to hide their eggs. 

A man of deeds, not words, is he. 
Who never stooped to roll a log; 

Agile as fond gazelle or flea, 
Sagacious as an indoor dog; 

In him we find a spacious mind, 

"Uncribb'd, uncabin'd, unconfin'd." 

In martial exploits he delights, 
And has no fear of War's alarms; 

The hero of a hundred fights. 

Since first he was a child (in arms); 



IN POLITICS 



Like battle-horse, when bugles bray. 
He champs his bit and tries to neigh. 

And if the Army of the State 
Is always in such perfect trim. 

Well organized and up to date. 
This grand result is due to him; 

For while his country reaped the fruit, 

'Twas he alone could reach the Root. 

And spite of jeers that foes have hurled. 
No problems can his soul perplex; 

He lectures women of the world 
Upon the duties of their sex, 

And with unfailing courage thrusts 

His spoke within the wheels of trusts. 

No private ends has he to serve. 
No dirty linen needs to wash; 

A man of quite colossal nerve. 

Who lives sans peur et sans reproche; 

In modo suaviter maybe. 

But then how fortiter in re ! 

A lion is his crest, you know, 
Columbia stooping to caress it, 

With m et armis writ below, 
Nemo impune me lacessit; 

His motto, as you've read already, 

Semper paratus — always Teddy ! 

Harry Graham 



44 ROOSEVELT 



SARGENT'S PORTRAIT OF THEODORE 
ROOSEVELT 

A RT such as this has power to withstand 
All tricks. The sovereignty that lies 
complete 
Within the man needs not the throned seat 
Or sceptre to reveal his just command. 
No symbol of the writer in his hand, 
Nor trophies of the soldier at his feet, 
Uncrowned the brow, where truth and 
courage meet, 
The Citizen alone confronts the land. 

Keen, dominant, intense, combative, brave. 

Above the insignia of official place. 
The artist has but given what nature gave — 
A Man — whose dreamful, valiant mind 
conceives 
High purpose, consecrated to his race, 
That his strong hand grasps, fashions 
and achieves. 

Margaret Ridgely Partridge 

THE BALLAD OF SAGAMORE HILL 

'nniS morning, and King Theodore 

Upon his throne sits he 
As blithely as a King can sit 

Within a free countree. 
And now he thinks of submarines, 

And now of peace and war. 



7A^ POLITICS 45 

His royal robe he handeth Loeb, 
Then wireth to the Czar: 

"Come off, come off, thou Great White Czar, 

Come off thy horse so high ! 
Send envoys straight, and arbitrate 

Thy diplomatic pie." 
Then straightway to the Mik-a-doo 

This letter he doth limn, 
"Come off thy perch, thou Morning Sun, 

And do the same as him!" 

Then straightway from the Rising Sun 

Come envoys three times three, 
Komura neat and Sato sweet, 

(An Irish Japanee). 
Small men are they with domey brains, 

And in their fingers gaunt 
A list of seven hundred things 

They positively want. 

Then straightway from St. Petersburg 

Come envoys six times two, 
De Witty grand and Rosen bland 

And Nebotoffkatoo — 
Volkyrieoffskygrandovitch — 

(Here see the author's note, 
"The balance of that noble's name 

Came on another boat.") 

'Twas on the royal yacht Mayflower 

They met, that noble crew. 
"De Witty grand, shake Sato's hand — 



46 ROOSEVELT 



Komura, how-dee-do!" 
While forty thousand gun-salutes 

Concuss on Oyster Bay, 
A proud man is King Theodore 

Upon that trysting day! 

To Portsmouth town, to Portsmouth town. 

The sweating envoys puff. 
To speak of tin and Saghalien 

And eke to bluff and bluff — 
But Theodore at Oyster Bay 

Doth while the times between 
By taking trips and dives and dips 

Within his submarine. 

For many a day the Japanese 

Uphold their fingers gaunt. 
And mention seven hundred things 

They positively want — 
For many a day the Muscovites 

Down-plant their Russian shoes, 
And mention seven hundred things 

They positively refuse. 

Till haply from his submarine 

King Theodore doth peep. 
And stops a wireless telegram 

That buzzeth o'er the deep: 
"0 Theodore, goodly King, 

The envoys call our bluff — 
Despite the fuss the stubborn Russ 

Disgorgeth not the stuff." 



7A^ POLITICS 47 



"Come hither, Mr. Serge de Witt!" 

King Theodore doth say, 
"Now tell me quick by the Big Stick 

Why dost refuse to pay?" 
"Come hither, Baron Kom-u-ra, 

And sit upon my lap — 
Why dost thou cuss and make a fuss, 

Thou naughty, naughty Jap?" 

To Portsmouth back, to Portsmouth back. 

The envoys then do flee. 
And each is sad and mild and meek 

As an envoy ought to be. 
And as they speak of Terms of Peace 

Politeness doth ensue — 
Like Prince Alphonse and Duke Gaston, 

'Tis ever "After you!" 

So soon the terms of Peace are signed 

And put upon a shelf. 
And Theodore doth straightway take 

Great credit to himself. 
The bugles call and roses fall 

On good King Theodore, 
As round the Stick the kodaks chck 

Full twelve times thirty-four. 

And now when ancient grandsires sit 

Within the evening gray. 
And oysters frolic noisilee 

All over Oyster Bay, 



48 ROOSEVELT 



The graybeard tells his little niece 

How Theodore did trek 
To drag the gentle Bird of Peace 

To Portsmouth — by the neck. 

Wallace Irwin 

IF KOOSEVELT HAD BEEN BAD 

(He'd have been the baddest man that ever was, his 
daughter says) 

Y/OU never spoke a greater truth, 

For baddest of the men were best, 
Who in their boyhood and their youth 

Had drifted to the strenuous West; 
Big, whole-soul'd, generous Mother's Boys, 

With tender hearts, and souls aglow, 
With hopes, ambitions, and the joys 

That make good fellows love them so. 

Some broke their bonds and ran away, 
• Some slowly drifted with the tide, 
Some saw the blood-and-thunder play 

Where many a Bowery redskin died. 
And some were college boys, and bred 

In homes where Christian parents knelt; 
And some were strenuous, cultured, read, 

And brave, like Papa Roosevelt. 

Many a noble Mother's Boy 

Has carved a fortune and a name, 

Whose coming back brought tears of joy 
And happiness, as well as fame. 



IN POLITICS 49 

And others, just as pure, alas ! 

And just as honest, true and brave, 
Have toyed too often with the glass, 

And only filled a felon's grave. 

Have pity, then, oh, Daughter fair, 

Of Him who best can understand 
The hearts of splendid men who dare 

As dared the boys of his command. 
Have pity and compassion, too. 

On those unfortunates who fell, 
Who wear the stripes instead of blue. 

And yet, who love their country well. 

For half the men behind the bars. 

In Western pens across the plains, 
Are fit to fight in freedom's wars 

As men of courage, heart and brains. 
And don't forget that many men 

Too often fall as life begins. 
And many a man in prison pen 

Is suffering for another's sins. 

Captain Jack Crawford 

THANK GOD FOR A MAN ! 

(1904) 

THHANK God for a man ! There was need 

In this much-doubting day 
Of one that could fashion a deed 

As a sculptor the clay, 
Undaunted by shadows of ill 

That the dawn might reveal, 



50 ROOSEVELT 



Strong-heartedly laboring still 
For a noble ideal. 

Direct in the candor of youth 

That is clear as the sky, 
He cleaves with the bright edge of Truth 

Through the mask of the lie. 
Endowed with the zeal that survives 

And the courage to see 
All things as they are, yet he strives 

For the good that must be. 

What matter the scurrilous sneer 

And the buzz and the hum! 
We know him: Wise, steadfast, sincere; 

And the young men to come 
Shall broaden the pathway he trod 

And the work he began 
Shall bring to fulfilment. Thank God 

For His gift of a man ! 

Arthur Guiterman 

LITTLE ORPHANT TEDDY 

(With profound apologies to James '^Tiitcomb Riley) 

T ITTLE Orphant Teddy's come to our 

house to stay. 
To clean things up as well as out, an' raise 

the deuce, they say; 
An' shoo the bosses off the stoop, an' dust 

the White House floors, 
An' kick the Magnates off their perch, and 

lock 'em out-o'-doors. 



IN POLITICS 51 



An' all us other children, we've promised to 

be good, 
Er little Orphant Teddy he won't let us have 

no food; 
An' we jest set an' hsten to the spooks he 

tells about, 
An' the Big Bull Moose 'at gits you 
Ef you 
Don't 
Watch 
Out! 

Oncet they was a great big Trust 'at nuveer 

would behave. 
An' allers gobbled up the gold 'at other 

peoples save. 
An' when it grabbed most all there was, a 

feller he come round 
With great big teeth a-flarin', an' they made 

a scrunchin' sound; 
An' when the man 'at made the Trust come 

lookin' fir his shares 
They wasn't any Trust at all around there 

anywheres — 
An' all he found was jest a spot, 'longside a 

water-spout, 
An' the Big Bull Moose'll git you 
Ef you 
Don't 
Watch 
Out! 



52 ROOSEVELT 



An' one time another chap 'at useter fib a 

lot 
Come runnin' round a corner for to tell 

some news he'd got, 
An' 'fore he knowed where he was at there 

come a grindin' noise 
Like thirty-seven giunts eatin' ninety-'leven 

boys, 
An' down from summers in the air there 

come a fearful flub, 
An' that there feller he got hit with th' 

Annie Nius Club ! 
It crushed him, an' it squshed him, an' it 

slammed him all about. 
An' the Big Bull Moose'll git you 
Ef you 
Don't 
Watch 
Out! 

An' Httle Orphant Teddy says he's goin' to 

take the earth 
An' give it a lambastin' jest for all thet he 

is worth. 
He's goin' to lam his Uncle Sam, an' soon 

as he is through 
He's goin' to tackle Yurrup, an' the folks 

in Asia too; 
An' when he's cleaned 'em up he says he's 

goin' to take the Sea 
An' pour it down the black hole where the 

Devil's said to be; 



7A^ POLITICS 53 

An' then he's goin' to Heaven, where he'll 

tell 'em all about 
The Bull Moose as '11 get them 
Ef they 
Don't 
Watch 

Out! 
John Kendrick Bangs 

CALL HIM THE CHILD OF GOD 

PALL him the child of God; 

It is his rightful name. 
Who laboring hard hath trod 

The way of truest fame; 
Not the red path of war and force and 

might, 
But the Peacemaker's path that leads to 
hght. 

And since that name is his. 

Wish him the joy thereof, 
Of healing miseries 

And taking burdens off. 
Of wiping tears away and ending pain 
And bidding Life lift up her face again. 

Rejoice with him, O world ! 

But most ye twain rejoice, 
Whose standards still unfurled, 

Have heard the herald Voice 



54 ROOSEVELT 



That bids the cannons' deathful roar to 

cease 
With prelude strains of the sweet song of 

William H. Draper 

CLOSE TO A NATION'S BEATING 
PULSE HE STANDS 

^LOSE to a nation's beating pulse he 
stands. 
And feels the undercurrents surging 

strong, 
In balance quivering 'twixt right and 
wrong. 
He lives to meet what day and hour com- 
mands, 
To seek wide fellowship with other lands. 
To win small praise, though workmanship 

be long; 
The "Firm Foundation" stronghold of 
his song 
Makes heart the servant of all high demands. 

Man's energy makes destiny of man: 
Where prairies sweep, where mountains 

lap the snow. 
There courage leaps, there righteousness 
doth grow. 
And there be found the leadership that can 

Alike give service unto friend or foe — 
A Master's conquest since all time began. 

Liska Stillman 



IN POLITICS 55 



THE PRESIDENT 

(1908) 

UUNTER and soldier stalwart to the 

core, 
Statesman and warrior versed in the rare art 
Which feels with mind and thinks with all 

the heart; 
Not his the craven biding safe ashore 
When the loosed whirlwinds down the 

heavens roar, 
But his the outward sailing with a chart 
Clear-drawn and open — free, in every part, 
From hypocritic wile and quibbling lore. 
What though he sometimes fail to round 

his plan? 
He who makes no mistakes does naught 

beside ; 
Life is too short to wait for wind and tide; 
God help this man, who does the best he 

can. 
In spite of those who strive to keep him 

there 
A sawdust puppet in a gilded chair! 

Harry Kemp 

"LIVE THOU IN NATURE" 

(Inscribed to T. R., March 23, 1909) 

T IVE thou in nature ! Live 

With the stars and with the winds; 
Take all the wild world can give, 
All thy free spirit finds; 



56 ROOSEVELT 



Finds while the seasons pour 

Their braveries at thy feet; 
When the ice-rimmed rivers roar 

Or summer waves their rote repeat. 

Let thy hushed heart take its fill 
Of the manifold voice of the trees. 

When leafless winter crowns the hill 
And shallow waters freeze. 

Let budding Spring be thine, 

And autumn brown and debonair, — 

Days that darken and nights that shine, — 
Let all the round years be thy fare. 

Let not one full hour pass 

Fruitless for thee, in all its varied length; 
Take sweetness from the grass, — 

Take from the storm its strength. 

Take beauty from the dawn. 

Patience from the sure seed's delay; 

Take gentleness from the light withdrawn, 
And every virtue from the wholesome day. 
Richard Watson Gilder 

WHO GOES THERE? 

■V\7H0 goes there ? An American ! 

Brain and spirit, brawn and heart. 
'Twas for him that the nations spared 
Each to the years its noblest part, 



IN POLITICS 57 



Till from the Dutch, the Gaul, and Celt, 
Blossomed the soul of Roosevelt. 

Student, trooper, and gentleman, 
Level-Udded ^vith times and kings. 
His the voice for the comrade's cheer; 
His the ear when the sabre rings. 
Hero-shades of the old days melt 
In the quick glance of Roosevelt. 

Hand that's moulded to hilt of sword. 
Heart that ever has laughed at fear. 
Type and pattern of civic pride, 
Wit and grace of the cavalier. 
All that his fathers prayed and felt 
Gleams in the glance of Roosevelt. 

Who goes there? An American! 
Man to the core as men should be. 
Let him pass thro' the lines alone. 
Type of the sons of Liberty. 
Here, where his fathers' fathers dwelt. 
Honor and faith for Roosevelt. 

Grace Duffie Boylan 

HE ENTERETH AlVIERICA BY THE 
FRONT DOOR 

(1910) 

(Prom "The Teddysee") 
jyjUSES, lend me an earthquake 

To rattle the big blue dome. 
Or a dynamite bomb. 



58 ROOSEVELT 



Or a fierce tom-tom, 
Or a bugle-call. 
Or Niagara's fall — 
Full justice to do 
To the hullabaloo 

Which roared New York and the Country 
through 

When Teddy came sailing noma. 
Thunder and smoke, how the Patriots woke 

From Kalamazoo to Nome ! 
Your Uncle Sam fell off o' the porch 
And the Statue of Liberty swallowed her 
torch 

When Teddy came sailing home. 

There was color, there was noise. 
There were Abernethy boys. 

There was many a chief and scout and 

lion-trainer; 
Cuban Vets with battered hilts 
And Cornelius Vanderbilts, 

And that Tammany-Insurgent, Mayor 

Gaynor. 
Woolly war-cries filled the air. 
Cowboys rode in Union Square, 
' "^ Fame stood on her heavenly perch and 

yelled like Melba; 
Sons of Erin, Sons of Titus 
And the Order of Saint Vitus 

Skinned their throats to raise the Battle- 

Cry of Elba. 



IN POLITICS 59 



Through the Ready-Money Town 
They paraded up and do\^Ti, 

Teddy bowing right and left like Julius 
Csesar; 
And the Nation, which had slumbered 
As the empty months were numbered, 
Thrilled again to greet its Corporation 
Squeezer. 

When the tumult and the spouting 
Died away amidst the shouting. 

And the Captains and the Colonels had 
departed, 
Sat a Grafter in his clover 
Chuckling: "Gee! I'm glad it's over!" 

Echo answered: "Over, man! He's 

scarcely started!" „r „ y 

•^ Waliace Irwin 

ST. ROOSEVELTIUS 

AlVIERICA! America! she maketh loud 

complaint ; 
In all the holy calendars she has no patron 

saint ! 
St. George for merry England St. Denis 

fosters France, 
St. Andrew is for Russia whatever may 

mischance; 
St. Patrick is for Ireland, St. Jago is for 

Spain, 
St. Boniface for Germany — ^while we forlorn 

remain. 



60 ROOSEVELT 



Columbus sailed the stormy seas in fourteen- 

ninety-two, 
But, as a saint for this fair land, that Dago 

will not do. 
He's far, too far, removed from us — ^four 

centuries away — 
We want a saint that's up to date — one of 

the present day. 
We want a saint — we've one in mind — a 

saint our very own; 
We see him on the San Juan hill, a bucking 

horse his throne; 
We see him with his lance in play, against 

the circling trusts; 
We see him dive beneath the wave 'mid 

ocean's fiercest gusts; 
We see him always doing things — ^his ways 

are strenuous — 
Oh, who but Theodore can be this fitting 

saint for us? 



Oh, let Frank Bowers picture him, as in his 

latest stunt, 
The peace-compeller of the world, a saint 

both smooth and blunt; 
A gentle dove on his cUnched fist, a halo 

'round his pate — 
Oh, give us St. Rooseveltius, in all things 

up to date ! 

C. D. 



7iV POLITICS 61 



PUS NAME 

TUST a wee little scrap of a laddie, so fair. 

But he carried his bonnie head high; 

And he pulled off his pretty Scotch cap 

with an air. 

Whenever a lady passed by. 

"For you'll see that I must be polite," he 

would say, 
" When you hear that Tm Theodore Roosevelt 
McVeigh r 

Oft, the sleeve of his small, scarlet sweater 
he'd roll 
That the muscle beneath you might see. 
"With the doctor or dentist, the tears he'd 
control, 
And be brave as a soldier could be. 
"For I have to he manly and strong," he 

would say, 
"'Cause you know, I am Theodore Roosevelt 
McVeigh!" 

Now, the President's sometimes called 
Teddy, you know. 
This, the little lad learned with surprise. 
He really could hardly beUeve it was so; 

"What! Teddy? a man of his size?" 
And he thought about it all the rest of the day. 
This small, puzzled Theodore Roosevelt 
McVeigh. 



62 ROOSEVELT 



But tliat night, when he went up with 
mama, to bed, 
A dear little sleepy-eyed chap, 
He had settled it all in his mind, and he 
said, 
As he cuddled up close in her lap: 
"It is fine to he Theodore Roosevelt McVeigh, 
But I feel more like Teddy, at this time of 
day!" 



Pauline Frances Camp 



HEADY FOR TEDDY 

(1912) 

J^ELLO, Teddy ! All th' West is watchin' 

you, 
Hello, Teddy ! An' it's wishin' for you, too. 
We Hke your Western manner and we like 

your W'estern style, 
We've watched you since we knew you an' 

we've liked you all the while. 
You're a man that praise don't flatter an' 

a man success don't sp'ile, 

An' that's why we watch for you, 
An' are wishin' for you, too. 

Hurrah, Teddy ! Or for better or for wuss. 
Where'er y' be or what y' be, you're Teddy, 

sir, to us ! 
Y"ou were Teddy when the bugle ca.lled t' 

every creed an' clan, 



7.V POLITICS 63 



You were Teddy w-ith your soldier boys, 
they're with you where you stan'; 

You are Teddy all th' time, sir, but, by Gad, 
you are a ^L\N, 

An' it ain't th' kind or breed — 
It is MEN as w^hat we need. 

Bless you, Teddy ! You're th' proper build 
an' brand, 

Bless you, Teddy! An' we like t' shake 
your hand, 

It's a hand that's built for shakin', in a 
cordial. Western way. 

An' hke your heart it's just as true to- 
morrow as t'day. 

An' when you're in a scrimmage, sir, we 
know that you will STAY, 

An' we're goin' t' stay by you. 
An' we're goin' t' see you through! 

Good-by, Teddy, an' remember what we 

say. 
Set up th' flag an' lead and we will follow 

where y' may, 
Th' Western style is common, but th' 

Western heart is true, 
Th' metal may look rough, but it is gold, 

sir, through an' through. 



64 ROOSEVELT 

An' our hands an' hearts, howe'er they be, 

we oflFer 'em t' you, 
For we hke you, yes, we do, 
An' the West is out for you ! 

Anonymous 

THE CATARACT OF T. R. 

(Written during the presidential campaign of 1912) 

"IJOW do the speeches 

Come forth from T. R. ?" 
My httle boy ask'd me 
Thus, once on a time; 
And moreover he task'd me 
To tell him in rhyme. 
I looked at the stanzas 
That Southey had done 
And thought me of Kansas 
And said: "This is fun." 
And so, not to jockey too long for a start, 
I answered as follows, responded in part: 
"From carriage and car 
Goes speaking T. R., 
Through prairie and vale. 
O'er mountain and dale. 
On the sea, and on land. 
On the shore and the beach. 
Prepared or unplanned. 
Thus issues his speech: 
Swelling, compelling, 
Foretelling, rebelling, 

(And writing it out in his simplified spelling) 
Bolting, revolting, 



IN POLITICS Q5 



And crookedness jolting, 
Urging and scourging, 
Insurging and splurging, 
Lashing and dashing, 
Crashing and smashing, 
Slashing and thrashing. 
And cuspids a-flashing. 
Knocking and shocking. 
Rumbling and tumbHng, 
Rushing and crushing. 
Rebutting and cutting. 
Wording, engirding. 
And hitting and gritting 
With zeal unremitting, 
And rattling and battling. 
Banging and whanging. 
Haranguing and clanging. 
Staging and raging 
As fierce as a taurus. 
And all of the rest 
Of the rhyming thesaurus. 
Brave and bromidic. 
Bold and bizarre — 
That's how the speeches 
Come forth from T. R." 

FranJdin P. Adams 



AN ODE TO T. R. 

npHOU who, with sword or pen, 

Layest about thee when 
Needful, and crooked men, 



66 ROOSEVELT 



Cordially hatest; 
Great in thy former sway; 
Greater in Afrikay; 
And as thou art to-day 

Possibly greatest. 

We have a liking old 
For thee, though manifold 
Stories, we know, are told. 

To thy discredit; 
How, when the panic came. 
Thou didst invoke the same. 
Thou wert alone to blame — 

Wall Street has said it. 

Some say thy work is crude, 
Saturate, o'erimbued. 
Crowded with platitude 

Ancient, druidic; 
"Two and Two Equals Four, 
Seven than Six Is More," 
So saith our Theodore, 

Bravely bromidic. 

Confound such knavish knocks 
Born in the street of stocks ! 
Even though paradox 

Subtle and artful 
Be not in Teddy's style. 
Far from us to revile 
Utterances worth while. 

Honest and heartf ul ! 



IN POLITICS 67 

Crooks may have had their blufif 
Called by the Colonel's stuff, 
Yet "he is good enough 

For us." O heady, 
Bright and particular 
Beacon and guiding star, 
W.-k.* T. R. 

Here's to thee, Teddy! 

Franklin P. Adams 

* Well-known. 

LO! HE WOULD LIFT THE BURDEN 

Theodore Roosevelt 

T O ! he would hft the burden from the 

weak. 

Kindle with hope the dull eye of despair, 

And for the common weal all things would 

dare. 

Scourging the money-changers, smiling, 

sleek, 
Forth from the temple till on him they seek 
Impotent vengeance. Slanders must he 

bear — 
Foul imprecations that infect the air; 
Lies, till the heavy breath of heaven doth 

reek 
With stench of calumny; the assassin's blow. 
The mockery of the proud; the stinging 

thorn 
Of fickle friendship, flattery turned to 
scorn; 
Yet while the coming years their gifts bestow 



68 ROOSEVELT 



Crowning great names with glory, his 

shall shine 
In the front rank of our illustrious line. 
William Dudley Foulke 

VISION 

Theodore Roosevelt — 1912 

T^RIEND of the People, purposeful and 

strong. 
You, who would right their wrong. 
You, of the ardent eyes 
That woo the glory of the further skies ! 
For the glad answer of a new sunrise 
Must you then wait so long? 

Oh ! Man of Vision ! though the rest be 

bUnd, 
You, who do love Mankind, 
You, who believe 

That our fair Country shall indeed retrieve 
The promise of the ages. You shall find 
Your heart's reprieve. 

With your own motto 

"Spend and so be spent," 

Your high intent 

Makes of yourself a willing instrument. 

With heart and soul afire 

You do aspire 

But to be broken, should the cause require. 

An arrow shattered ere the bow be bent ! 



7A^ POLITICS 69 

What though the sordid sneer ! 

They may not hear 

The cry of those 

Who suffer the fierce throes 

Of pain and hunger after deadly toil. 

Your brothers of the soil 

Follow your beacon light 

Away from their dark night. 

And in the end, 

Though you be spent, 

You, who were glad to spend. 

You would not be 

A bafiled Moses with the eyes to see 

The far fruition of the Promised Land, 

Who would not understand 

How to lead captive dread Captivity, 

Who would not even crave 

A lost and lonely grave 

By Jordan's wave? 

Corinne Roosevelt Robinson 

WHEN TEDDY HITS THE WEST 

Sent to T. R. while he was in the Yellowstone by 
the writer, who lived in Pittsburg, Kansas. Mr. Histed 
is an old hunter and trapper who, as early as 1858, 
mined for gold in the Rocky and Sierra-Nevada moun- 
tains. Editor. 

I-JE can have my old revolver 

And my scalping-knife to boot; 
He can have my "lost" cinnamon 
And grizzly bear to shoot. 



70 ROOSEVELT 



He can take my tent and terbaeker. 

And jacks and prospect tool; 
He may climb the highest mountain 

In the Rockies on my mule. 
He can have my "Injun sweetheart," 

My "lease" at Cromwell Point; 
He may fry his Injun flapjacks 

In my skillet at the "joint." 
He can have my Injun blanket, 

The varmints and my all; 
He can take my tattoo-needles. 

My hounds and bugle-call; 
He can fish the Injun trout -brook 

And cast for ripe "old red." 
He can dance the Injun war-dance. 

And scrape the river-bed 
For nuggets that we missed — some 

More precious than we hed, 
He can have my old worn rocker 

To wash the yellow dust, 
And yell the wild old "war-whoop" 

Until his lungs would bust. 
He can have my buckskin leggin's 

And my tattered government coat. 
That old gray cayuse pony 

And my Presidential vote. 
He'll ne'er be sorry he met us, 

And his trip will do him good; 
He'll see we all are friendly 

And his speeches understood. 
Fond recollections will remind him 

That we done our level best 



IN POLITICS 71 



To entertain a comrade — 

"When Teddy Hits the West." 

Thaddeus C. Histed 

THE REVEALER 

Roosevelt — 1912 

He turned aside to see the carcase of the lion. . . . 
And the men of the city said unto him, "What is 
sweeter than honey? And what is stronger than a 
lion?" 

'T'HE palms of Mammon have ordained 

The gift of our complacency; 
The bells of ages have intoned 
Again their rhythmic irony; 
And from the shadow, suddenly, 
'Mid echoes of decrepit age, 
The seer of our necessity 
Confronts a Lyrian heritage. 
Equipped with unobscured intent. 
He smiles, vnth. lions at the gate. 
Acknowledging the compliment 
Like one familiar with his fate; 
The lions, having time to wait, 
Perceive a small cloud in the skies 
Whereon they look, disconsolate, 
With scared, reactionary eyes. 

A shadow falls upon the land; 
They sniff, and they are like to roar. 
For they will never understand 
What they have never seen before, 



72 ROOSEVELT 



They march, in order, to the door. 
Nor caring if the gods restore 
The lost composite of the Greek. 
The shadow fades, the hght arrives. 
And ills that were concealed are seen: 
The combs of long-defended hives 
Now drip dishonored and unclean. 
No Nazarite or Nazarene 
Compels our questioning to prove 
The difference that is between 
Dead hons — or the sweet thereof. 

But not for lions, live or dead, 

Except as we are all as one. 

Is he the world's accredited 

Revealer of what we have done. 

What you and I and Anderson 

Are still to do is his reward; 

If we go back when he is gone — 

There is an Angel with a Sword. 

He cannot close again the doors 

That now are shattered for our sake; 

He cannot answer for the floors 

We crowd on, nor for walls that shake; 

He cannot wholly undertake 

The cure of our immunity; 

He cannot hold the stars, nor make 

A seven years a century. 

So time will give us what we earn 
Who flaunt the handful for the whole, 
And leave us all that we may learn 



IN POLITICS 73 

Who read the surface for the soul. 
And we'll be steering to the goal, 
For we have said so to our sons; 
When we who ride can pay the toll 
Time humors the far-seeing ones. 
Down to our noses' very end 
We see, and are invincible, 
Too vigilant to comprehend 
The scope of what we cannot sell; 
But while we seem to know, as well 
As we know dollars, or our skins. 
The Titan may not always tell 
Just where the boundary begins. 

Edwin Arlington Robinson 

TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

(1912) 
T HEAR a mighty people asking now 

Who next shall be their captain and 
their chief. 
Amidst them towers a Man as Teneriffe 
Towers from the ocean, and that Man art 

Thou — 
Thou of the shaggy and the craggy brow. 
The day of fate comes on; the time is brief; 
Round the great ship is many a lurking reef; 
And wouldst thou drive once more that 

giant prow.f* 
Perhaps thou shalt and must! But if the 

choice 
Fall on another voyager, thou shalt still 



74 ROOSEVELT 



Be what thou art, thy nation's living voice, 
Wherewith she speaks in thunder. Nay, 

thou art more; 
Thou art her fiery pulse, her conquering will; 
Thou art America, dauntless Theodore. 

William Watson 



IN PUBLIC LIFE 



THE PROGRESSIVE 

'T'HE world is waiting, in a crucial pause. 
Breathless, with nature; and a silent 
song 

Falls in mute beauty from the starry 
throng; 

For Heaven with Earth unites in vast 
applause, 

While wide America forsakes each cause 

Of petty import — broad-winged, giant- 
strong. 

And joins its million hands o'er acres long 

To choose a chief who shall wield well its 
laws. 

Choose him, the nations and the planets 
sing. 

Who shall to Labor, weary-worn, yield 
mirth; 

Who shall to those afflicted Justice bring; 

Who shall admit to woman greater worth; 

Who shall educe the best from everything. 

He shall lead progress to the spinning earth ! 

Julia Cooley 

THE MAN IN THE WHITE HOUSE 

(An acrostic) 

nPHE chance-flung favorite of no lucky 

hour, — 
Here is the man who strode, not rose, to 
power ! 

77 



78 ROOSEVELT 



Eyes riveted on duty, not reward. 
Offering his country heart and brain and 

sword; 
Danger he scorn 'd and ease he put away. 
On toward fame's summit plodding night 

and day; 
Ranchman, rough-rider, patriot, magis- 
trate, — 
Exalting Law, and reverencing the State, — 
Rich in that rare inheritance of worth 
Old as the heavens and honest as the earth; 
Oak-hearted, fearless, pure as Galahad, — 
Sycophants hate him, spoilsmen think him 

mad. 
Except our land beget such sons as he 
Vain are our boastings of prosperity; 
Empty of self-conceit, big-soul'd, robust, — 
Love warms his will, yet nerves it to be just, — 
This is a ruler whom the ruled can trust ! 
Frederic Laiorence Knowles 

THE BALLAD OF GRIZZLY GULCH 

T^HE rocks are rough, the trail is tough, 

The forest lies before. 
As madly, madly to the hunt 

Rides good King Theodore 
With woodsmen, plainsmen, journalists 

And kodaks thirty-four. 

The bobcats howl, the panthers growl, 
"He sure is after us!" 



7A^ PUBLIC LIFE 79 

As by his side lopes Bill, the Guide, 

A wicked-looking cuss — 
"Chee-chee!" the little birds exclaim, 

"Ain't Teddy stren-oo-uss ! " 

Though dour the climb with slip and slime, 

King Ted he doesn't care, 
Till, cracking peanuts on a rock, 

Behold, a Grizzly-Bear ! 
King Theodore he shows his teeth. 

But he never turns a hair. 

"Come hither, Court Photographer," 

The genial monarch saith, 
**Be quick to snap your picture-trap 

As I do yon bear to death." 
"Dee-lighted!" cries the smiUng Bear, 

As he waits and holds his breath. 

Then speaks the Court Biographer, 

And a handy guy is he, 
"First let me wind my biograph. 

That the deed recorded be." 
"A square deal!" saith the patient Bear, 

With ready repartee. 

And now doth mighty Theodore 

For slaughter raise his gun; 
A flash, a bang, an ursine roar — 

The dready deed is done ! 
And now the kodaks thirty-four 

In chorus cHck as one. 



80 ROOSEVELT 



The big brown bruin stricken falls 

And in his juices lies; 
His blood is spent, yet deep content 

Beams from his limpid eyes. 
"Congratulations, dear old pal!" 

He murmurs as he dies. 

From Cripple Creek and Soda Springs, 

Gun Gulch and Gunnison, 
A-foot, a-sock, the people flock 

To see that deed of gun; 
And parents bring huge families 

To show what they have done. 

On the damp corse stands Theodore 

And takes a hand of each. 
As loud and long the happy throng 

Cries "Speech!" again and "Speech!" 
Which pleaseth well King Theodore, 

Whose practice is to preach. 

"Good friends," he says, "lead outdoor 
lives 

And Fame you yet may see — 
Just look at Lincoln, Washington, 

And great Napoleon B.; 
And after that take off your hats 

And you may look at me!" 

But as he speaks a Messenger 

Cries, "Sire, a telegraft!" 
The king up takes the wireless screed. 



IN PUBLIC LIFE 81 



Which he opens fore and aft, 
And reads, "The Venezuelan stew 
Is boiUng over. ^^^^ „ 

Then straight the good King Theodore 

In anger drops his gun 
And turns his flashing spectacles 

Toward high-domed Washington. 
"O tush!" he saith beneath his breath, 

"A man can't have no fun!" 

Then comes a disappointed wail 

From every rock and tree. 
"Good-by, good-by!" the grizzlies cry 

And ring their handkerchee. 
And a sad bobcat exclaims, "O drat! 

He never shot at me!" 

So backward, backward from the hunt 
The monarch lopes once more. 

The Constitution rides behind 
And the Big Stick rides before 

(Which was a rule of precedent 
In the reign of Theodore). 

Wallace Irwin 

THE ESCORT OF THE YELLOWSTONE 

"Cinnabar, Mont., April 23— The President's vaca- 
tion here (Yellowstone Park) is at an end. ... He 
rode a big grey horse named Bonaparte, belonging to 
Troop B, Third Cavalry, during the whole of his tour, 
and spent most of his time studying the habits of the 
animals. ... On April 11 the President and party 



82 ROOSEVELT 



got in among a band of nearly two thousand elk, and 
one band followed the party for over a mile." Times- 
Despatch. 

ABOVE him the wild skies bending, 

Beneath him the wastes of snow — 
Through the hush of the forest wending. 

And over the black plateau 
He rode, with his strong heart glowing, 

In a clime of old, held dear. 
And the winds of the west were blowing 
With the music he loves to hear. 

Beside him, with clanking sabre. 

The brown-cheeked trooper rode, 
Yet, he passed as friend and neighbor. 

Where the things of the wild abode — 
Where the things that people the places 

Of mountain and hill and fen 
Were waiting, with kindly faces, 

To welcome the chief of men: 

And so that they, too, might render 

Their tribute of love to him. 
Forth, then, in their strength and splendor 

From the forests dark and dim, 
From the wastes and the gushing fountains 

Like a leaping wave of flame. 
The antlered kings of the mountains 

In royal escort came. 

Down through the wild wastes riding. 
They followed him over the snow, 



IN PUBLIC LIFE 83 



By the peaks in the cloud-mists hiding, 
And down to the broad plateau; 

And never, in song or story, 
In tourney, or feast, or fray, 

Rode king or khan in his glory 
As this man rode that day. 

John S. M'Groarty 

THE UNAFRAID 

Fishing in Colorado, the author of these verses ob- 
served only trout being caught. Asking his cowboy 
guide why that was so, he was told: "Only the game- 
fish swim up-stream." That is the theme of the poem 
which was written at once. Colonel Roosevelt prized 
the poem highly and wrote to the author with enthu- 
siasm about it. Mr. Moore headed the Tennessee 
delegation that nominated Roosevelt for the Presidency 
in 1916, an honor declined. Editor. 

/^NLY the lion kings the land 

Who is whelped in the desert's fire; 
Only the stallion lords the band 

With the hoof unmurk'd with mire. 
The peak for the eagle to preen and to 

dream — 
Only the game-fish swims up-stream. 

Only the ocean carries a sail 

That foams to the blizzard's breath; 

The silent seas that creep and quail 
Are asleep with the curse of death. 

The sky for the rocket to glow and to 
gleam — 

Only the game-fish swims up-stream. 



84 ROOSEVELT 



Only the stars are suns which burn 
By the heat of their own heart's Hght: 

The million worlds which round them turn 
Float dead in nebulous night. 

The meteor's burst is its funeral beam — 

Only the game-fish swims up-stream. 

Only the man is made for fame — 

Ocean and eagle and sun — 
Whose soul, by fate, is dipt in flame 

And winged with the winners who run. 
Fame for the Faithful — death for the dead — 
The peak and the star for the Unafraid ! 
John Trotwood Moore 



GUESS WHO? 

(1916) 

QOMETIMES fantastical. 

Often bombastical. 
Always dynamic and never scholastical, 

Slightly uproarious, 

Bracing as Boreas, 
Living each day with a zest that is glorious, 
Bane of the highbrows and folk hypercritical. 

Subject of many a plutocrat's curse. 
Buried in state by his foemen political 

Only to climb up and pilot the hearse ! 

There is an air to him, 
There's such a flare to him. 



7A^ PUBLIC LIFE 85 

There's such a rare, debonair do-and-dare 
to him ! 
Bulldog tenacity. 
Mixed with vivacity, 
Tempered with humor and sense and 

sagacity; 
What if his speeches are crowded with 
platitudes, 
Somehow he's built on the popular plan. 
Actions and manner and sayings and atti- 
tudes. 
All of them prove him a Regular Man! 

Quite undistressable. 

Most irrepressible, 

Open and frank — yet a problem unguessable. 

Terse, though didactical, 

Learned, but practical. 
Strong for preparedness, moral and tactical, 
Vivid and vital and vervy and vigorous. 

Simply and humanly "playing the game," 
Preaching and living a life that is rigorous, 

— Give you three guesses to call him by 
name ! 

Berton Braley 



AFTER THE PRESIDENCY 



MISSING 

¥ LAY down my fresh morning paper, 
I drop it at once from my hand; 
No thrilling account of his caper 

Appears there to stir up the land. 
There's nothing on roses or rabies. 

There's nothing on taxes or teeth. 
There's nothing on ballots or babies, 

No sword is a-clank in its sheath — 
It makes me feel terribly solemn; 
No longer he fills the first column. 

I used to get up every morning 

And read while my breakfast grew cold 
A blending of promise and warning, 

A mixture of praising and scold; 
I used to call out to my neighbor: 

"Well, here he is at it again" — 
Alas, he has beaten his sabre 

Into a contributing pen. 
It makes me tremendously solemn 
To miss him now in that first column. 

He hasn't gone up with the flyers. 

He hasn't whizzed out on the train. 
He hasn't named four or five liars. 

He simply is not raising Cain! 
Why, hang it ! it doesn't seem proper 

A paper like this to peruse ! 
There's nothing comes out of the hopper 

Except the day's run of the news. 
89 



90 ROOSEVELT 



I stand here with countenance solemn 
And ask why he left the first column. 

So sudden it was — in a minute 

That column relinquished his name. 
One day he was certainly in it, 

Next morning it wasn't the same. 
It interferes some with my eating; 

There's nothing but items to read — 
No speaking, or parting, or greeting, 

No frazzles, or challenge to heed. 
By gracious ! I've felt mighty solemn 
Since he fell out of the first column! 
Jefferson Toombs 

THE FIRST PAGER 

CCHOLAR and soldier, wit and sage. 
Rancher, rover and family man; 
Critic of music, art and stage. 

Preacher and lawyer and artisan. 
Journalist, naturalist, jury, judge. 

Anything, everything, large and small; 
Safe in your fame, without a grudge, 

The greatest First Pager of them all. 

Epigrammatist, hewer of wood. 

Student of earth and sea and sky; 

Flaming Evangel of Rectitude, 
Politician and Samurai. 

Poet, historian, master of theme, 
Prince attuned to the peasant's call; 



AFTER THE PRESIDENCY 91 



Bane of bosses, yet Boss supreme — 
The greatest First Pager of them all. 

How he played on the heart and mind! 

Fount of the nation's cheers and tears! 
Centuries' lore of myriad kind 

Crammed in a life of sixty years. 
Foe ferocious and gentle friend. 

Martinet, mentor and seneschal; 
Strenuous superman till the end — 

The greatest First Pager of them all. 

Never an equal was ever known; 

Never a peer in Glory's hall ! 
Good luck, Teddy! you shone alone 

The greatest First Pager of them all! 

Guy Lee 



HIS TRAVELS 



"BWANA TUMBO"— THE GREAT 
HUNTER 

An elephant, straying from its herd, broke into a 
bazaar at Masingi, East Africa. It played havoc with 
the merchandise spread out for sale and created a panic 
among the natives. "Do not worry," their ruler told 
them. "Colonel Roosevelt is on his way to hunt in 
this section; he will rid Masingi of bad elephants." 
Lions had approached Kilindini, the landing-place at 
Mombasa. The people were in terror. "Be at peace 
— President Roosevelt will slay them!" the natives 
were told. Thus Roosevelt's fame went before him. 

1)EY0ND the sea there's much contented 
grunting, 

The wild hyena laughs; 
The elephant has trumpeted: "No hunting ! 

And no more photographs!" 

Beyond the sea the tom-toms are a-drum- 
ming 

Farewell to Theodore; 
All Africa with business now is humming, 

Dried up the trail of gore. 

He will not change for monkeys, lions, 
tigers, 
The empire of the West, 
Sweet Oyster Bay's cool plunge for torrid 
Niger's, 
The man who knows no rest. 

Walter Beverly Crane 

95 



96 ROOSEVELT 

ENOUGH 

"It was bully while it lasted, but it lasted long enough." 
Cobnel Roosevelt s comment on his African hunt. 

"p\OESN'T seem much chance to doubt it — 

What the papers said he said, 
Yet there's something strange about it 

Coming from our zestful Ted. 
Never, never in the past did 

Anybody hear such stuff — 
"It was bully while it lasted, 

But it lasted long enough." 

Everything he did was "bully," 

Life was just one perfect song. 
Though he wished each job were fully 

Twice as hard and twice as long. 
Now he says the Afric vast did 

Pall upon his fibre tough: 
"It was bully while it lasted. 

But it lasted long enough." 

When upon the hills of Cuba 

Or the wild and woolly West 
His young heart was singing juba 

As he met each manly test, 
Never was our hearing blasted 

By a dictum half so rough: 
"It was bully while it lasted. 

But it lasted long enough." 

Can it be that ancient vigor 
Has departed from that frame. 



HIS TRAVELS 97 

That he's older from the rigor 
Of the chase of tropic game? 

That his banner is half-masted 

When he speaks this sort of guff — 

"It was bully while it lasted, 
But it lasted long enough"? 

Fervently and long we pray it 

May be something quite untrue. 
If you said it, please unsay it, 

Theodore, — it's not like you; 
Surely some reporter crass did 

Much misquote you — for a bluff — 
"It was bully while it lasted, 

But it lasted long enough." 

Berion Braley 

THE RETURN 

T^HE cyclone-cellar's open wide 

And filling with a crowd. 
They pour in like an endless tide. 

For they have seen a cloud. 
Soon they will shut the safety -door. 

Nor leave an open crack; 
Since most of them were hit before: 

T, R. is back. 

The malefactors of great wealth 
Are gathered in the gloom. 

And nature fakers, for their health, 
Have sought that darkened room. 



98 ROOSEVELT 



A Governor or two is there; 

Of Senators no lack. 
A dark-blue haze pervades the air; 

T. R. is hack. 

Newspaper men rise with the sun 

And work until it's late. 
The news that occupied page one 

Is printed on page eight; 
On all the pages in between 

You'll find in white and black 
The things he's said; the things he's seen: 

T. R. is back. 

Now each Rough Rider wears his suit 

And oils his Forty -five; 
They swarm, from San Antone to Butte, 

Like bees about to hive. 
The Outlook office glows with flowers 

And discipline is slack; 
For everybody counts the hours: 

T. R. is back. 

Every committee's wide awake; 

The ship's already here. 
Each mother of fourteen will take 

Her offspring down to cheer. 
The Big Stick's cleaned and poUshed down; 

They want to see it whack 
Some Ananias on the crown: 

T. R. is back. 

Walter Trumbull 



HIS TRAVELS 99 

FROM HAUNTS OF BEASTS 

t^ROM haunts of beasts, and tangled vine, 
From unknowTi jungles and wild dunes, 
From strange new rivers on the line 

Of Capricorn and tropic suns. 
Into a wilderness, indeed. 

Where only fools and knaves hold 
power, — 
Oh, Captain, come and intercede 
For us who need you at this hour. 

At home our foes are manifold 

And traitors do not feel the light. 
The sword of justice lies in mould; 

There is no victory for the right. 
We grope in darkness and dismayed 

Afar we hear the roll of thunder; 
While at the Capitol — outplayed — 

Our Chiefs pile blunder upon blunder. 

Abroad our flag dishonored trails. 

The sport of every bandit king 
And unavenged the widow wails 

Her dead that stare mute questioning. 
We are beset by countless harm 

And stagger on distraught and blind; — 
Oh, for the valor of your arm. 

The courage of your heart and mind ! 

Hail, Captain ! — lover of us all ! — 

We watch for you with eager eyes. 
From sea to sea your name we call 



100 ROOSEVELT 



And not until the last man dies 
Can be your deeds and you forgot; 

For in our heart there burns a flame. 
That even when we shall be not, 

Will crown and glorify your name. 

Only from those who have we ask 

And they are the ones who always give 
And spend and are spent in the task 

That every man may freely hve — 
Only from those who have we ask. 

Of them we need no sacred vow. 
Though dark and terrible the task — 

Therefore, Great Captain, lead us now. 
Joseph Bernard Rethy 

COLONEL ROOSEVELT IN DOMINICA 

(February 26, 1916) 

A HANDFUL of blacks drawn up on the 

quay of Roseau, 
Recruits from a dozing sun-drenched island. 
We wondered 
How they would face harsh steel and vigil 
and snow. 
Then he spoke, spoke of their glory. As if 
he had thundered 
The praise of gods, they straightened and 
stiffened to men. 
With the look: "Now we are ready to die 
again and again ! " 

Richard Butler Glaenzer 



THE WORLD WAR 



TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

(On his sixtieth birthday, Oct. 27, 1918.) 

TTO-DAY your threescore years have 
tolled, 
And millions fain would grasp your 
hand, 
And pray that you be never old, 
You noblest servant in our land. 

None lives that matches your good deeds; 

May all your years the tale fulfil; 
No eye so plainly sees our needs — 

Our captain once, our pilot still. 

On fields of France your blood has flowed. 
In France fights all you hold most dear; 

'Tis well you were denied that road — 
You serve us better, fighting here. 

Fight on ! Reiterate each day 

The truths that none but you dare tell. 
Guide us along the only way 

That does not lead us toward hell. 

Amid the jarring and the lurch 

Of words, quacks, incantations, cures. 
Whose shoulder is the eagle's perch? 
Soldier of Liberty, 'tis yours. 

Owen Wister 
103 



104 ROOSEVELT 



THE CALL OF THE HOUR 

(Written on the occasion of Colonel Roosevelt's offer 
to lead a battalion to France.) 

r^PEN the gates to Roosevelt; make way 

for his marching throng! 
From East and West they are coming, 

thousands on thousands strong. 
This is no time to look askance, to palter 

or deny; 
Give heed, for we are the People, and we 

are asking — why? 

Open the gates to Roosevelt; each hour is 

precious now; 
We are bound to the strife for freedom by 

an old unchanging vow. 
The strong await your ruling; will you 

frown and pass them by.'* 
While the deep call rings about us, and the 

world is asking why? 

Open the gates to Roosevelt; we'll fight 

with France again ! 
She calls through the battle's thunder, "For 

God's sake give us men!" 
A gift is ours for the giving that none may 

dare deny. 
Take heed, for we are the People, and we 

shall ask you why! 



TEE WORLD WAR 105 



We know the men and the leaders, — they 

come with hearts aflame; 
The swift and brave to-day must save a 

world from death or shame; 
Then open the gates to Roosevelt; haste, 

lest the great Cause die ! 
And the voice of a mighty People in wrath 

shall ask you why ! 

Marion Couthouy Smith 

'ROOSEVELT TO FRANCE" 

gEND Roosevelt 

Ower tae France; 
Send tae the trenches 
Thot square-jawed, 
Clear-brained, 
Fechtin' mon. 
And send him 
Quickly ; 

Whit though he isna 
Schule-bred soldier, 
Whit enough 
He isna fitted 
Fir graun' tactics 
Or the movin' 
O' great armies; 
He's a fechtin' mon. 
Ilka drop 
O' the red blude 
Thot floods 
His hamely body 



106 ROOSEVELT 



Is fechtin' blude; 

Ilka inch o' him 

Is fechtin' inch. 

Ilka ounce 

O' the lad 

Is fechtin' ounce. 

Sore-pressed France 

Hes telt us 

Thot she needs him, 

And he's askit us 

Tae send him ower 

Fir tae help. 

And whit fir reason 

Can we gie 

Fir a refusal? 

Folk tell me 

Thot Teddy 

Wull ne'er make 

A great general; 

Thot a' he'd take 

Tae France 

Wad be a name. 

And a' thot I 

Can answer them 

Is this — 

Thenk the gude Lord 

It's a clean name. 

It's sic a name 

As I wad follow. 

If I wes a soldier-lad, 

Intae the gates 

O' hell; 



TEE WORLD WAR 107 

It's the name 

O' the one American 

^\Tiae dared 

Tae tell us. 

In the lang months 

Since this great 

World-wide war 

Hes sterted. 

The unshrinkin' truth; 

The one American 

Whae dared 

Tae shake his fist 

Unner the noses 

O' a supine people. 

Lulled tae sleep 

Wi' pretty words, 

And tell us 

Tae prepare. 

Since thot first day 

When mornin' stars 

Taegether sang. 

Millions o' lads 

Hae died 

On battle-field 

Wi' smilin' faces — 

Fir a name; 

Millions o' mithers 

Hae kissed 

Their first-born 

And said gude-by 

Tae them, 

And sent them 



108 ROOSEVELT 

Oot tae battle — 

Fir a name; 

Racks and thumbscrews, 

Torture and death — 

A' these 

Hae been endured — 

Fir a name, 

And O frien's ! 

Leave us send 

Ower tae France 

The biggest name 

America hes ken't 

In lang, lang years; 

Listen, folk, 

Joffre and Roosevelt, 

"And they sail be 

An host." 

Yir frien' 

Scoity 

Editor's Note: After Colonel Roosevelt had read 
these verses, he sent to Sam (Scotty) Mortland, their 
author, who conducts a column in the Fresno (Cali- 
fornia) Republican, in Scotch dialect under the heading 
"Twa Mouthfu's o' Naethin'," the following character- 
istic letter; 

„ . , ^ ,, Sagamore Hill, Feb. 1, 1918 

Frien Scotty: 

I have now read "Twa Mouthfu's" through. If I 
should die tomorrow I would be more than content to 
have as my epitaph, and my only epitaph, "Roosevelt 
to France" — to have it as the only thing which should 
keep alive my memory to my children and grand- 
children. 

Faithfully yours, 

Theodoee Roosevelt 



TEE WORLD WAR 109 

MAN OF STRAIGHT WORD 

l\/f AN of straight word and valiant deed. 
Our guide and leader many a year; 
In this dark hour of doubt and fear, 
Be with thy people in their need. 

These pigmies cannot wield thy sword; 
Fair words, false deeds, ignoble men. 
Perplex us. Bring strong hfe again 

O thou bright Champion of the Lord. 
Margaret Boyce Bonnell 

FIGHTING STOCK 

QUENTIN, the Eagle, nobly dead! 
^^ Theodore wounded but plunging ahead; 
Archie, torn in the shrapnel's rain. 
Pleading to lead his lads again. 
Kermit, leaping from honors won 
To wrench new victories from the Hun ! 
Here is no shielded, princeling clan, 
But front-line champions of man. 
Come, have we called the roll entire? 
Nay, add to it that sturdy sire 
Who guides in spirit his Bayard breed 
To starry goal and shining deed. 

Fighting stock ! Fighting stock ! 
And millions more of the same brave strain 
Ploughing through Picardy and Lorraine. 
What tyrant can withstand their shock? 
Fighting stock ! Fighting stock ! 

Daniel Henderson 



ELEGIAC VERSE 



GREAT-HEART* 

(Theodore Roosevelt in 1919) 

"The Interpreter then called for a'man-servant of his, 
one Great-Heart." Bunyans "Pilgrim's Progress" 

(CONCERNING brave Captains 
Our age liath made known 
For all men to honor. 

One standeth alone, 
Of whom, o'er both oceans 

Both Peoples may say: 
"Our realm is diminished 

With Great-Heart away.'* 

In purpose unsparing, 

In action no less. 
The labors he praised 

He would seek and profess 
Through travail and battle. 

And hazard and pain. . . . 
And our world is none the braver 

Since Great-Heart was ta'en ! 

Plain speech with plain folk, 

And plain words for false things. 

Plain faith in plain dealing 
'Twixt neighbors or kings 

• Copyright, 1919, by Rudyard Kipling. 
113 



114 ROOSEVELT 



He used and he followed. 

However it sped. . . . 
Oh, our world is none more honest 

Now Great-Heart is dead ! 

The heat of his spirit 

Struck warm through all lands; 
For he loved such as showed 

'Emselves men of their hands; 
In love, as in hate. 

Paying home to the last. . . . 
But our world is none the kinder 

Now Great-Heart hath passed! 

Hard-schooled by long power. 

Yet most humble of mind 
Where aught that he was 

Might advantage mankind. 
Leal servant, loved master. 

Rare comrade, sure guide. . . . 
Oh, our world is none the safer 

Now Great-Heart hath died! 

Let those who would handle 

Make sure they can wield 
His far-reaching sword 

And his close-guarding shield; 
For those who must journey 

Henceforward alone 
Have need of stout convoy 

Now Great-Heart is gone. 

Rudyard Kipling 



ELEGIAC VERSE 115 

WITH THE TIDE 

COMEWHERE I read, in an old book 

whose name 
Is gone from me, I read that when the days 
Of a man are counted, and his business done 
There comes up the shore at evening, with 

the tide, 
To the place where he sits, a boat — 
And in the boat, from the place where he 

sits, he sees. 
Dim in the dusk, dim and yet so familiar, 
The faces of his friends long dead ; and knows 
They come for him, brought in upon the tide. 
To take him where men go at set of day. 
Then rising, with his hands in theirs, he goes 
Between them his last steps, that are the 

first 
Of the new life — and with the ebb they pass. 
Their shaken sail grown small upon the 

moon. 

Often I thought of this, and pictured me 
How many a man who lives with throngs 

about him, 
Yet straining through the twilight for that 

boat 
Shall scarce make out one figure in the stern. 
And that so faint its features shall perplex 

him 
With doubtful memories — and his heart 

hang back. 



116 ROOSEVELT 



But others, rising as they see the sail 
Increase upon the sunset, hasten down, 
Hands out and eyes elated; for they see 
Head over head, crowding from bow to stern, 
Repeopling their long loneliness with smiles, 
The faces of their friends; and such go forth 
Content upon the ebb tide, with safe hearts. 

But never 

To worker summoned when his day was done 

Did mounting tide bring in such freight of 

friends 
As stole to you up the white wintry shingle 
That night while they that watched you 

thought you slept. 
Softly they came, and beached the boat, 

and gathered 
In the still cove under the icy stars. 
Your last-born, and the dear loves of your 

heart. 
And all men that have loved right more 

than ease. 
And honor above honors; all who gave 
Free-handed of their best for other men. 
And thought their giving taking: they who 

knew 
Man's natural state is efJort, up and up — 
All these were there, so great a company 
Perchance you marvelled, wondering what 

great ship 
Had brought that throng unnumbered to 

the cove 



ELEGIAC VERSE 117 

Where the boys used to beach their light 

canoe 
After old happy picnics — 

But these, your friends and children, to 

whose hands 
Committed, in the silent night you rose 
And took your last faint steps — 
These led you dowTi, O great American, 
Down to the winter night and the white 

beach, 
And there you saw that the huge hull that 

waited 
Was not as are the boats of the other dead, 
Frail craft for a brief passage; no, for this 
Was first of a long line of towering trans- 
ports. 
Storm-worn and ocean-weary every one, 
The ships you launched, the ships you 

manned, the ships 
That now, returning from their sacred quest 
With the thrice-sacred burden of their dead. 
Lay waiting there to take you forth with 

them. 
Out with the ebb tide, on some farther quest. 

Edith Wharton 

AT SAGAMORE HILL 

ALL things proceed as though the stage 

were set 
For acts arranged. I have not learned the 
part, 



118 ROOSEVELT 



The day enacts itself. I take the tube, 
Find dayhght at Jamaica, know the place 
Through some rehearsal, all the country 

know 
Which glides along the window, is not seen 
For definite memory. At Oyster Bay 
A taxi stands in readiness; in a trice 
We circle strips of water, slopes of hills. 
Climb where a granite wall supports a hill, 
A mass of blossoms, ripening berries, too. 
And enter at a gate, go up a drive. 
Shadowed by larches, cedars, silver willows. 
This taxi just ahead is in the play. 
Is here in life as I had seen it in 
The crystal of prevision, reaches first 
The porte-cochere. This moment from the 

door 
Comes Roosevelt, and greets the man who 

leaves 
The taxi just ahead, then waits for me. 
Puts a strong hand that softens into mine, 
And says, O, this is bully! 

We go in. 
He leaves my antecessor in a room 
Somewhere along the hall, and comes to me 
Who wait him in the roomy library. 
How are those lovely daughters.'' Oh, by 

George ! 
I thought I might forget their names, I 

know — 
It's Madehne and Marcia. Yes, you know 



ELEGIAC VERSE 119 

Corinne adores the picture which you sent 
Of MadeHne — ^your boy, too? In the war! 
That's bully — tea is coming — we must talk, 
I have five hundred things to ask you — set 
The tea things on this table, Anna — now. 
Do you take sugar, lemon ? O, you smoke ! 
I'll give you a cigar. 

The talk begins. 
He's dressed in canvas khaki, flannel shirt. 
Laced boots for farming, chopping trees, 

perhaps; 
A stocky frame, curtains of skin on cheeks 
Drained slightly of their fat; gash in the 

neck 
Where pus was emptied lately; one eye dim. 
And growing dimmer; almost blind in that. 
And when he walks he rolls a little like 
A man whose youth is fading, like a cart 
That rolls when springs are old. He is a 

moose. 
Scarred, battered from the hunters, thickets, 

stones; 
Some finest tips of antlers broken oflF, 
And eyes where images of ancient things 
Flit back and forth across them, keeping 

still 
A certain slumberous indifference 
Or wisdom, it may be. 

But then the talk! 
Bronze dolphins in a fountain cannot spout 



120 ROOSEVELT 



More streams at once. Of course the war, 

the emperor, 
America in the war, his sons in France, 
The dangers, separation, let them go ! 
The fate has been appointed — to our task, 
Live full our lives with duty, go to sleep! 
For I say, he exclaims, the man who fears 
To die should not be born, nor left to live. 
It's Celtic poetry, free verse. He says: 
You nobly celebrate in your Spoon River 
The pioneers, the soldiers of the past. 
Why do you flout our PhiUppine adven- 
ture ? 
No difference. Colonel, in the stock; the 

difference 
Lies in the causes. Well, another stream: 
Mark Hanna, Quay and others. What I 

hate. 
He says to me, is the Pharisee — I can stand 
All other men. And you will find the men 
So much maligned had gentle qualities. 
And noble dreams. Poor Quay, he loved 

the Indians, 
Sent for me when he lay there dying, said, 
Look after such a tribe when I am dead. 
I want to crawl upon a sunny rock 
And die there like a wolf. Did he say that, 
Colonel, to you ? Yes ! and you know, a 

man 
Who says a thing like that has in his soul 
An orb of light to flash that meaning forth 
Of heroism, nature. 



ELEGIAC VERSE Ul 



Time goes on, 
The play is staged, must end; my taxi comes 
In half an hour or so. Before it comes. 
Let's walk about the farm and see my corn. 
A fellow on the porch is warming heels 
As we go by. I'll see him when you go. 
The Colonel says. 

The rail fence by the corn 
Is good to lean on as we stand and talk 
Of farming, cattle, country life. We turn, 
Sit for some moments in a garden-house 
On which a rose-vine clambers all in bloom, 
And from this hilly place look at the strips 
Of water from the bay a mile beyond. 
Below some several terraces of hills 
Where firs and pines are growing. This 

resembles 
A scene in Milton that I've read. He 

knows. 
Catches the reminiscence, quotes the hnes 

— and then 
Something of country silence, look of grass 
Where the wind stirs it, mystical little 

breaths 
Coming between the roses; something, too. 
In Vulcan's figure; he is Vulcan, too. 
Deprived his shop, great bellows, hammer, 

anvil. 
Sitting so quietly beside me, hands 
Spread over knees; something of these 
evokes 



122 ROOSEVELT 



A pathos, and immediately in key 
With all of this he says: I have achieved 
By labor, concentration, not at all 
By gifts or genius, being commonplace 
In all my faculties. 

Not all, I say. 
One faculty Is not, your over-mind. 
Eyed front and back to see all faculties. 
Govern and watch them. If we let you 

state 
Your case against you, timid born, you 

say, 
Becoming brave, asthmatic, growing strong: 
No marksman, yet becoming skilled with 

guns; 
No gift of speech, yet winning golden speech; 
No gift of writing, writing books, no less 
Of our America to thrill and live — 
If, as I say, we let you state your case 
Against you as you do, there yet remains 
This over-mind, and that is what — a gift 
Of genius or of what ? By George, he says. 
What are you, a theosophist? I don't 

know. 
I know some men achieve a single thing, 
Like courage, charity, in this incarnation; 
You have achieved some twenty things. I 

think 
That this is going some for a man whose 

gifts 
Are commonplace and nothing else. 



ELEGIAC VERSE 123 

We rise 
And saunter toward the house — and there's 

the man 
Still warming heels; my taxi, too, has come. 
We are to meet next Wednesday in New 

York 
And finish up some subjects — he has 

thoughts 
How I can help America, if I drop 
This line or that a little, all in all. 

But something happens; I have met a loss; 
Would see no one, and write him I am off. 
And on that Wednesday flashes from the 

war 
Say Quentin has been killed; we had not met 
K I had stayed to meet him. 

So, good-by 
Upon the lawn at Sagamore was good-by. 
Master of Properties, you stage scene 
And let us speak and pass into the wings ! 
One thing was fitting — dying in your sleep — 
A touch of Nature, Colonel, you who loved 
And were beloved of Nature, felt her hand 
Upon your brow at last to give to you 
A bit of sleep, and after sleep perhaps 
Rest and rejuvenation; you will wake 
To newer labors, fresher \dctories 
Over those faculties not disciplined 
As you desired them in these sixty years. 
Edgar Lee Masters 



124 ROOSEVELT 

SMALL MEN AT GRAPPLE WITH 
A MIGHTY HOUR 

CMALL men at grapple with a mighty 
hour, 
I watch their honest straining at their 
task, 
Or their poor strutting mimicries of power; 
And well I know 'tis all in vain to ask 
A strength not theirs, or depth from the 
shallow soil: 
But I bethink me sadly of a man 
With giant shoulder for a giant's toil, — 

Lost Atlas of our world American, 
Would it were his to bend his shaping eye 

On our unruly Chaos, call it to heel 
And cow it back to Order, and defy, 
With scorn of his great anger, the wild 
steel 
Of fool rebellion, and with hammer blows 
Forge us a new republic 'gainst our foes. 

Richard Le Gallienne 



IN WHICH ROOSEVELT IS COMPARED 
TO SAUL 

A^yHERE is David? ... Oh, God's 

people, 
Saul has passed, the good and great. 
Mourn for Saul, the first-anointed 
Head and shoulders o'er the state. 



ELEGIAC VERSE 125 

He was found among the prophets, 
Judge and monarch merged in one. 
But the wars of Saul are ended, 
And the works of Saul are done. 

Where is David, ruddy shepherd, 
God's boy-king for Israel? 
Mystic, ardent, dowered with beauty. 
Singing where still waters dwell? 

Prophets find that destined minstrel 
Wandering on the range to-day. 
Driving sheep and crooning softly 
Psalms that cannot pass away. 

"David waits," the prophet answers, 
"In a black, notorious den. 
In a cave upon the border. 
With four hundred outlaw men. 

"He is fair and loved of women, 
Mighty-hearted, born to sing. 
Thieving, weeping, erring, praising, 
Radiant, royal rebel-king. 

"He will come with harp and psalt'ry, 
Quell his troop of convict swine. 
Quell his mad-dog roaring rascals, 
Witching them with tunes divine. 

"They will ram the walls of Zion, 
They will win us S^lem Hill, 



126 ROOSEVELT 



All for David, shepherd David, 
Singing like a mountain rill." 

Vachel Lindsay 

THE SPACIOUS DAYS OF ROOSEVELT 

nPHESE were the spacious days of Roose- 
^ velt. 

Would that among you chiefs like him arose 
To win the wrath of our united foes, 
To chain King Mammon in the donjon-keep. 
To rouse our godly citizens that sleep 
Till as one soul we shout up to the sun 
The battle-yell of freedom and the right — 
"Lord, let good men unite." 

Nay, I would have you lonely and despised. 
Statesmen whom only statesmen under- 
stand. 
Artists whom only artists can command. 
Sages whom all but sages scorn, whose fame 
Dies down in lies, in synonyms for shame. 
With the best populace beneath the sun. 
God give us tasks that martyrs can revere. 
Still too much hated to be whispered here. 

Would we might drink with knowledge high 

and kind 
The hemlock cup of Socrates the King, 
Knowing right well we know not anything, 
With full life done, bowing before the law. 
Binding young thinkers' hearts with loyal 

awe, 



ELEGIAC VERSE 127 

And fealty fixed as the ever-enduring sun — 
God let us live, seeking the highest light, 
God help us die aright. 

Nay, I would have you grand and still 

forgotten, 
Hid like the stars at noon, as he who set 
The Egyptian magic of man's alphabet; 
Or that far Coptic, first to dream of pain 
That dauntless souls cannot by death be 

slain — 
Conquering for all men then the fearful 

grave. 
God keep us hid, yet vaster far than death. 
God help us to be brave. 

Vachel Lindsay 

THE A. E. F. TO T. R. 

This poem is a paraphrase of a beautiful tribute in 
prose, published in Stars and Stripes. Editor. 

/^ONE is the joy, — gone is the thrill of 

returning; 
We who had longed to share with you all 

our laurels. 
To lay them at the feet of our great com- 
panion; — 

Hushed is rejoicing! 

Never again to see the light from your 

window 
Shining across the land that you loved and 

inspired, — 



128 ROOSEVELT 



"Put out the light," you said, and slept; 
but not dreaming 

The darkness for others. 

You, our leader, but more, our greatest 
companion — 

Near enough for the spur of your voice and 
your hand-grip, 

Ever ready to share, but sharing, still lead- 
ing 

Upward and onward. 

Listen! This is our pledge, to fare and to 

follow. 
Follow the trail you blazed, without shadow 

of turning, — 
We, who have learned of you, shall not be 
found wanting 

Here or hereafter. 

Corinne Roosevelt Robinson 

TO MY BROTHER 

T LOVED you for your loving ways, 
The ways that many did not know; 
Although my heart would beat and glow 
When Nations crowned you with their bays. 

I loved you for the tender hand 

That held my own so close and warm; 
I loved you for your winning charm, 

That brought gay sunshine to the land. 



ELEGIAC VERSE 129 



I loved you for the heart that knew 
The need of every Httle child; 
I loved you when you turned and 
smiled, — 

It was as though a fresh wind blew. 

I loved you for your loving ways, 

The look that leaped to meet my eye. 
The ever-ready sympathy, 

The generous ardor of your praise. 

I loved you for the buoyant fun 
That made perpetual holiday 
For all who ever crossed your way, 

The highest or the humblest one. 

I loved you for the radiant zest. 

The thrill and glamour that you gave 
To each glad hour that we could save 

And garner from Time's grim behest. 

I loved you for your loving ways, — 
And just because I loved them so, 
And now have lost them — thus I know, 

I must go softly all my days. 

Corinne Roosevelt Robinson 

A WOMAN SPEAKS TO THEODORE 
ROOSEVELT'S SISTER 

J NEVER clasped his hand. 
He never knew my name, 
And yet at his command, 
I followed hke a flame. 



130 ROOSEVELT 



I pressed amid the crowd 
To touch his garment's hem, 

As one of old once touched 
The Man of Bethlehem. 

I was of those who toil, 

Whose bread is wet with tears, 
A daughter of the soil. 

And bent, though not with years. 

His words would lift the veil 
That blurred my tired eyes. 

They seemed to strengthen me 
To serve and sacrifice. 

And all the values lost. 

When life was cold and grim. 

Were clear and true again 
Interpreted by him. 

Our leader and our friend. 
He knew what we must bear, 

And to the gallant end 
He bade us do and dare. 

Clad in an armored truth. 
And by high purpose shod. 

He gave us back our youth. 
Our country, and our God! 

Corinne Roosevelt Robinson 



ELEGIAC VERSE 131 



THE MIGHTY OAK 

TT hath crashed down — the mighty oak 

That was a mark to fisher-folk 
And stately vessels far at sea, 
The guide for travellers dismayed, 
The refuge in whose gracious shade 
Were sheltered age and infancy. 

O, mariners who sailed by this. 
What well-loved landmark shall ye miss! 
And we, bewildered wandering folk. 
Lifting uncounselled eyes to-day 
Cry to each other in dismay, 
" It hath crashed down — the mighty oak ! ' 
Theodosia Garrison 



THE LION THAT ROOSEVELT SHOT 

T WAS a king of beasts, and he, all valor. 

Was king of men, and knew not rule 

of fear. 

Before my tawny threat he showed no 

pallor. 

No startled sign of sudden danger near. 

My body struggled hard, that crowded 
minute. 

My soul, aloof, read mastery in his face. 
But knew the blow he dealt had glory in it^ 

Nor any sting of rancor or disgrace, 



132 ROOSEVELT 



Now in elysian woods at last foregathered, 
Comrades, we range together, sire and 
sire, 
We who on earth were kings, and nobly- 
fathered. 
And regally wore each his earth attire. 

How proudly at his heel, in dawn or gloam- 
ing, 
With him, the lion-hearted, I am roaming ! 
Isabel Fiske Conant 

ON GUARD 

pAIN-WEARY, sore oppressed by time's 

slow flight, — 
Sated with grief for his dear, fallen lad,— 
Irked by the folly of a world gone mad,— 
He turned to sleep and said, "Put out the 

light." 
Then, in a moment, passed from earth and 

night 
To his high place, where deathless heroes 

are. 
And we, without him ?— Nay— behold afar. 
Already lit, his beacon-fire burns bright. 

Lift— lift on high, with quick, responsive 

hands, 
His torch of leadership. High let it flame 
Pledging our honor to his glorious name. 
Beware who holds it ! See, his spirit stands 



ELEGIAC VERSE 133 

With flashing sword, pointing its destined 

way— 
A fire by night, a pillared cloud by day. 

Anonymous 

THE GREAT, WILD, FREE SOUL 

T^HE great, wild, free soul 

Has passed. 
His was the sturdy heart 
Of the untamed pioneer. 
To him the roaring cataract 
And the soughing woods 
Brought sweetest music. 
He loved the distant reaches 
Of the great wide world. 
And was lured 
Into strange lands 
And trackless solitudes. 
An amazing man — 
A master painter. 
Whose hand gave 
To our nation's portraiture 
An heroic glow 
It cannot lose. j A TJ 

THOUGH OTHERS SLEPT 

'T'HOUGH others slept, he paced the 
parapet. 
Heeding the signs and signals in the sky. 
Each ugly omen marked, lest we forget 



134 ROOSEVELT 



Our solemn duty to humanity. 
Drugged by no subtle phrase or wily 

word, 
Of deadly makeshift, studiously shy. 
Ripe for the fight when Right and Justice 
stirred, 
Eager when Freedom called to answer 
"Aye." 

Ready ! The very word was made for him. 
Ordained for action though the world 
should pause. 
Obstinate? Yes, if will and purpose grim, 
Seem stubborn in a fight for righteous 
cause. 
Enter his name upon the muster-roll. 
Vitally charged with Jove's Olympic ire. 
Enter his name ! For his unharnessed 
soul 
Leaves with his sons the sabre of their sire. 
Tempered in zeal and patriotic fire. 
W. B. Gilbert 

"WE CANNOT THINK OF HIM AS 
OF THE DEAD" 

VV^E cannot think of him as of the dead. 
The ancient dead, whose ghostly 
caravan 
Treads the dim ages since the world 
began. 
We cannot see that high-erected head 



ELEGIAC VERSE 135 

Lie in the dust whence all the dream has 
fled: 
Grim, haughty Death has neither power 

nor plan 
To rule the spirit of the valiant man 
Who unto Immortality is wed. 

Life is the pulsing, radiant victor here, 
For he and Life together held the day, 
Undaunted down Life's tempest- 
stricken road. 
Wherefore, as falls our unashamed tear 
We flame our greetings on his starward 
way 
To Life's unfading and supreme abode. 
John Jerome Rooney 

A MAN! 

A BOUT his brow the laurel and the bay 
Were often wreathed, — on this our 
memory dwells, — 
Upon whose bier in reverence to-day 
We lay these immortelles. 

His was a vital, virile, warrior soul; 

If force were needed, he exalted force; 
Unswerving as the pole-star to the pole, 

He held his righteous course. 

He smote at Wrong, if he believed it Wrong, 
As did the Knight, with stainless acco- 
lade; 



136 ROOSEVELT 

He stood for Right, unfalteringly strong, 
Forever unafraid. 

With somewhat of the savant and the sage. 
He was, when all is said and sung, a man. 

The flower imperishable of this vaUant 
age,— 
A true American ! ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ 

GREAT IS OUR GRIEF 

/^REAT is our grief— O mighty soul— 

Not deeper is our loss. 
So recent was your brave heart called 

To bear this selfsame cross. 
The world is finer for your life 

By your example blest. 
May God grant peace to your fine soul — 
Leader of men — and rest ! 

Nina Jones 

"WHERE THE TREE FALLETH" 

"Where the tree falleth, there shall it be." 

THHAT great American and patriot. 

Who voiced the ancient words, lies cold 
in death. 
No regal sepulchre his resting-place, 
But bare brown earth beneath the naked 

trees; 
No martial music beat beside his bier, 



ELEGIAC VERSE 137 

But distant booming of the surge, that 

broke 
The silence of the everlasting hills. 
Thus he sleeps amid the things he loved, 
And in a quiet grave in far-off France 
His gallant son lies buried — splendid boy, 
Who flew on eagle wings, untried, untrained. 
Yet fearless mounted ever in the blue. 
And there found glorious death and death- 
less glory. 
On wings invisible his spirit soared. 
And where his broken body fell, it rests. 

"Where the tree falleth, there shall it be." 

The fields of France and Flanders will be 
green 

With buds of Spring, and myriad birds will 
sing 

Above the crosses gleaming in the sun. 

They sleep so quiet there, our soldier dead ! 

Shall we disturb their rest.'' Ah, say not 
so! 

For we may love them there as well as here. 

And Heaven will smile on them as gra- 
ciously. 

They gave so gladly of their glorious youth. 

And now they proudly he among their peers. 

Disturb them not; their splendid work is 
done. 

Wrapped in the starry flag they loved so 
well 



138 ROOSEVELT 



They sleep their dreamless, everlasting sleep. 

The red of poppies marks each resting- 
place, 

With white of lilies that they died to save. 

And Heaven's own blue smiles from behind 
the stars. 

Vilda Sauvage Owens 



THE EAGLE 

A GLORIOUS Sun has set. And lo, 

from where 
The brooding darkness lies, a soul upsprings 
Like a strong eagle on his outstretched 

wings 
And soars away, so swift and keen to share 
All that is best in that new life up there 
With other splendid souls, to whom he brings, 
With the same faith he gave to earthly 

things. 
Brave messages of love beyond compare. 

And one young soldier spirit stands and 

waits 
To greet and honor him at Heaven's gates. 
Nested by eagles in an atmosphere 
Of high, pure duty, patriotic, clear! 
Father and son; a nation's gift to God. 
We can but follow where their feet have 

trod. 

Caroline Russell Bispham 



ELEGIAC VERSE 139 



THE ONGOING 

J^OOSE me from tears, and make me see 
aright 
How each hath back what once he stayed to 

weep — 
Homer his sight, David his little lad.'* 

He will not come, the gallant flying boy, 
Back to his field. Somewhere he wings his 
way 

Where the Immortals keep; where Homer 

now 
Has back his sight, David his little lad; 
Where all those are we dully call the dead, 
Who have gone greatly on some shining 

quest. 
He takes his way. That which he quested 

for. 
That larger freedom of a larger birth. 
Captains him, flying into fields of dawn. 

He has gone on where now the soldier-slain 
Arise in light. Somewhere he takes his 

place 
And leads his comrades in untrodden fields. 
For never can these rest until our earth 
Has ceased from travail — never can these 

take 
Their fill of sleep until the Scourge is slain. 
And so they keep them sometimes near old 

ways 



140 ROOSEVELT 



In the accustomed fields — now flying low, 
Invisible, they cheer the gallant hosts, 
Bidding them be, as they, invincible. 

Still he leads on, the gallant flying boy! 
Among the "great good Dead" he steers 

his boundless course. 
Now where the soldier-poets pass in light — 
Where Brooke and Seeger and the others 

keep — 
The singing Slain, the fearless fighting 

Dead — 
He takes his brilUant way; or where those 

lately come 
Our flying Great, Mitchel and all his men. 
Wait him in large, warm-hearted welcoming. 

He will come never back! But we who 

watched 
Him take the upper air and steer his bound- 
less path 
Firmly against the foe, we know that here 
Death could not penetrate. Life only is 
Where all is life, and so, before us, keeps 
Always the vision of his faring on 
To unpathed fields where his great comrades 

wait. 
And, joyful, take him for their captaining — 
The brave Adventurer, 
The gallant flying Boy ! 

Mary Siegrist 



ELEGIAC VERSE 141 



DEATH AND ROOSEVELT 

IJE turned your lance, O Death, 

Full often from its mark; 
But he fought only in the day, 
Nor dreamed you'd take a coward's way, 
And stab him in the dark. 

Were you afraid, O Death, — 

So brave a front he kept? 
Dared you not face him in the light. 
But crept upon him in the night. 

And slew him as he slept? 

Ernest Harold Baynes 

OH, FOR A SON OF THY RELENTLESS 
POWER 

(~\R, for a son of thy relentless power, 
To dissipate the frowning dark of 
night. 
And lead our groping nation to the light, 
Far from the plaguing perils of the hour ! 
Oh, for thy virile voice, thy noble dower 
Of loyalty, thy blood and bone of might. 
Thy moving spirit, swerving not from 
right. 
That knew no foe before whom it would 
cower ! 

Master of men, sublimely strong and pure, 
Our love is thy unchiselled monument, 



142 ROOSEVELT 



Which shall for ages in our hearts endure — 
Yea, till dismay hath all its panic spent. 

And some great soul of thy bold signature 
Shall give to us a fearless government ! 
Lilburn Harwood Townsend 



GRAY IS THE PALL OF THE SKY 

/^RAY is the pall of the sky. 

Drear are the sea and the hill, 
Bitter and shrill is the cry 

Of gray gulls from the shore. 
White are the blossoms of snow 
Strewn in his pathway to still 
Footsteps of one who would go 
From his loved Sagamore. 



Free ! He has gone to his own. 
Gone to the men that he knew; 

(He was not ours alone) 
Men who were hopeful and strong. 
Men who were simple and true; 
Freemen who battled with wrong. 

They of San Juan and Luzon, 

They from the shades of Argonne, 
Gather at call of the drum; 

Proudly they pass in review, 

Shouting, "Our Leader has come!" 

Age had no rust for his blade. 
Bright broke the steel in the fray; 



ELEGIAC VERSE 143 

Way for more heroes he made — 

On the trail he has gone. 
White are the blossoms of Spring, 

Blue is the arch of the day, 
Young are his comrades, who sing 
On their march to the dawn. 

Roger Sterrett 

OUR LOST CAPTAIN 

A KINGLY soul is dumb within the 
tomb. 
Spent is the flame that burned so clear 

and free — 
The Light upon the headland in the sea — 
Our brightest beacon quenched in cloud and 

gloom. 
Wliile thick around our course new perils 
loom, 
Who may command, what leader shall 

there be 
To speak to us with his authority. 
And warn us ere we rush upon our doom? 

When storms shall brew beyond the misty 
deep. 
When the gaunt form of Anarchy shall 

rise. 
What guard will watch us Uke his sentinel 
eyes? 
Who, when we dream, will rouse us from 
our sleep? 



144 ROOSEVELT 



Aimless we drift — no compass, sail or oar. 
And our great captain points the way no 

°^^^^' William Dudley Foulke 



T 



INTO THE SILENCE 

'HE stalwart hands, with firmness 
fraught. 

The brain that throbbed with virile thought, 
The patriot heart, true to the last. 
Have gone into the silence vast; 
And yet they leave a path of light 
Across the darkness of the night, — 
The threefold light of sword and pen 
And the strong leadership of men. 

William Hamilton Hayne 

GUARDIAN OF THY LAND 

'T'HE world grows tow'rd its disenthralled 
stage ; 
New stirring currents through its veins 

are felt. 
And round its aged body, like a belt, 
Man weaves his spells with innovating rage. 
And as America forereads the age. 

And to her sons hath pregnant purpose 

dealt, 
Thy fearless vision fails her, Roosevelt! 
Thy practised hand no more may point 
the page. 



ELEGIAC VERSE 145 

Type of its force and guardian of thy land. 
Student and shaper of its destiny, 
From thinker and plain toiler on thy 
way 
Thou drankest deep of its democracy. . . . 
Then in its name and for the world we 
lay 
On thy cold lips a tremulous, reverent hand ! 
Herman Montagu Donner 

FAREWIELL ! 

" PAREWELL ! Farewell, Great Heart ! " 
The shouting runs 
From coast to coast, from sea to polar 
sea, 
Across far lands of tropic-sinking suns 
And isles of mystery! 

Alas ! The Leader whom we loved is gone ! 

Who takes the place his going leaves 
unfilled ? 
The face is cold we loved to look upon, — 

The mighty voice is stilled ! 

When others feared, his presence led the 
way: 
The wrong he smote when cravens stayed 
their hands ! 
So is it that his memory to-day 
Light-crowned, immortal, stands ! 



146 ROOSEVELT 



The blame, the hate, the spite, the sneers 
of men 
Were things to him unworthy any 
thought ! 
One thing alone directed sword or pen, — 
The thing his conscience taught ! 

His love of native land was deep as life, — 
A love no lure of gold could ever swerve: 

And when the nations plunged that land in 
strife, — 
His sword was first to serve ! 

We loved him living and we mourn him 
dead. 
The deeds he wrought throughout his 
life's high span 
Acclaim him, when the last true word is 
said, 
Our Great American ! 

C. H. Van Housen 

TO A PATRIOT 

'M'OT his the craven's role, nor any share 

In spiritless delay unleaderlike. 
Far-seeing, long he warned us to prepare 
Our thews for righteous combat — and to 
strike ! 
Exiled from France by malice partisan, 
Upon her shrine he laid with solemn 
pride 



ELEGIAC VERSE 147 

Four sons, each to the core American. 

One fell in godlike battle. Far and wide 
The nation mourned, and rendered homage 
vast 
To father and to son, mirrors of bold 
Lincolnian knighthood. Honor, ye who 
cast 
Ballots of freedom, men of freedom's 
mould ! 
Under such leaders rise and smite the foe. 
Within, without, till victory's banners glow. 

Harry T. Baker 



"PUT OUT THE LIGHT!" 

"pUT out the light!" And so in dark 
and night 

His spirit found the Everlasting Light. 

He is dead ! Dear Heaven, how much we 
need him ! 

Dead ! And there's none that can suc- 
ceed him. 

Silent that voice that rose in fearless fight 

Against Autocracy's engulfing might, 

And pale the hand that held a torch of 
flame, 

That rent the veil that hid the path of 
shame. 

A Nation weeps, while all the world is sad. 

And only Heaven is glad. 

Vilda Sauvage Owens 



148 ROOSEVELT 



LEADER OF MEN 

"pOOSEVELT is dead." Why should 
that Une 

Strike to my heart, as if it told 
The death of some close kin of mine, 

Father or brother, friend of old? 

I never saw him face to face — 

But once, some fourteen years ago. 

Outside the crowded meeting-place. 
When he addressed the overflow; 

The fearless eyes, the firm-set chin, 
A man who loved the nobler fight — 

The short, swift gestures, driving in 

The things he knew were just and right; 

A newer, deeper reverence 

For things that never can grow old; 
Judgments so filled with common sense 

Fools did not realize their gold; 

And things which statesmen scorn to 
preach — 

The love of children, home, and wife; 
Old-fashioned laws, yet those whose breach 

May sap the proudest nation's life. 

So with his passing now it seems 
The old, old order too is dead; 

The new, with all its restless dreams, 
Revolt and chaos, lowers ahead. 



ELEGIAC VERSE 149 

The coming storm in rage assaults 

The rocks that bulwarked all our past; 

And yet that age, with all its faults, 
Held things to which we must hold fast. 

The outworn temples we thought good, 
False gods, may well be overthrown; 

The broad foundations where he stood 
We still will cherish as our own. 

"Roosevelt is dead." Our leader gone! 

To-day there stands his vacant chair, — 
Not in that island home alone — 

By myriad firesides everywhere. 

He loved us ! Swift our torches light 
With the bright fire his courage gives; 

We shall not falter in the fight, — 
Roosevelt is dead. His spirit lives. 

Robert Gordon Anderson 

HE CAJVIE FROM OUT THE VOH) 

I-fE came from out the void 

Buoyed upon the surging tides. 
He braved the West, 
Defied the wide frontiers; 
He trekked the continents 
And enthroned his name 
Among the white, the black, the brown, the 

yellow men. 
He trod the frond. 



150 ROOSEVELT 



Fording the darkened streams 

That glide through jungles 

To the tropic sea. 

He spanned the globe, 

He swept the skies, 

And moved beneath the waters of the deep. 

He entered all the portals of the world, 

A vibrant, thrilled, exhaustless, restless soul; 

Riding at last the very stars — 

"^^^^^P* Robert H. Davis 

MR. VALIANT PASSES OVER 

(January 6, 1919) 

"ll/HEN the Post came, and told him that 

at last 
The pitcher that so faithfully and long 
Had served his fellow creatures in their 

thirst 
Was broken at the fountain. Valiant said: 
"I am going to my Fathers; and although 
Not easily I came to where I am, 
My pains upon the journey were well spent. 
My sword I give to him who shall succeed 
My pilgrim steps upon the Royal Road; 
My courage and my skill I leave to him 
Who can attain them — but my marks and 

scars 
I carry with me for my King to see 
As witness of his battles that I fought." 

As he went down into the river, many 



ELEGIAC VERSE 151 

Stood on the bank, and heard him say, 

"O Death, 
Where is thy sting?" And as the water 

grew 
Deeper — " O grave, where is thy victory ? " 
So he passed over, and the trumpets all 
Sounded for him upon the other side. 

John Bunyan, did you laugh in Paradise 
For joy to-day, to see your dream come true ? 
Amelia Josephine Burr 

ROOSEVELT 

(Lines read at the Harvard Club, New York, 
on February 9, 1919) 

T IFE seems belittled when a great man 

dies; 
The age is cheapened and time's furnishings 
Stare like the trappings of an empty stage. 
Ring down the curtain! We must pause, 

go home 
And let the plot of the world reshape itself 
To comprehensive form. Roosevelt dead ! 
The genial giant walks the earth no more, 
Grasping the hands of all men, deluging 
Their hearts, like Pan, with bright 

Cyclopean fire 
That dizzied them at times, yet made them 

glad. 
Where dwells he ? Everywhere ! In cot- 
tages 



152 ROOSEVELT 



And by the forge of labor and the desk 
Of science. The torn speUing-book 
Is blotted with the name of Roosevelt, 
And like a myth he floats upon the winds 
Of India and Ceylon. His brotherhood 
Includes the fallen kings. Himself a king. 
He left a stamp upon his countrymen 
Like Charlemagne. Yes, note the life of 
kings! 

A throne's a day of judgment in itself 
And shows the flaw within the emerald, 
For every king must seem more than he is, 
Ambition holds her prism before his eye, 
Burlesques his virtues, rides upon his car 
Clouded with false effulgence, till the man 
Loses his nature in a second seK, 
Which is his role. Yet Theodore survived — 
Resumed his natural splendor as he sank 
Like Titan in the ocean. 

The great war 
Was all a fight for Paris — must she fall 
And be a heap of desolation ere 
Relief could reach her.'' Sad America 
Dreamed in the distance as a charmed 

thing 
Till Roosevelt, Hke Roland, blew his horn. 
Alone he did it ! By his personal will. 
Alone — till others echoed — bellowing 
From shore to shore across the continent 
Like a sea-monster to the sleeping seals 



ELEGIAC VERSE 153 

Of Pribolov. Then, slowly wakening, 
The flock prepared for war. 'Twas just in 

time ! 
One blast the less and our preparedness 
Had come an hour too late. 

Aye, traveller. 
Who wanderest by the bridges of the Seine, 
Past palaces and churches, marts and streets, 
Whose names are syllables in history, 
'Twas Roosevelt saved Paris. There she 

stands ! 
Look where you will — the towers of Notre 

Dame, 
The quays, the columns, the Triumphal 

Arch — 
To those who know they are his monument. 
John Jay Chapman 

CLOSE UP THE RANKS! 

/^ENTLY Death came to him and bent 

to him asleep; 
His spirit passed, and, lo, his lovers weep, 
But not for him, for him the unafraid — 
In tears, we ask, "Who'll lead the great 
crusade .'' 

"Who'll hearten us to carry on the war 
For those ideals our fathers battled for; 
To give our hearts to one dear flag alone, 
The flag beloved whose splendid soul has 
flown?" 



154 ROOSEVELT 



With his last breath he gave a clarion cry: 
*'They only serve who do not fear to die; 
He only lives who's worthy of our dead ! 
Beware the peril of the seed that's spread 

"By them who'll reap a harvest of despair. 
By them whose dreams unstable are as air; 
By them who see the rainbow in the sky, 
But not the storm that threatens by and 

by." 

Our leader rests, his voice forever still. 
But let us vow to do our leader's will ! 
Close up the ranks ! Our Captain is not 

dead ! 
His soul shall live, and by his soul we're led; 

Led forward fighting for the real, the true. 
Not turned aside by what the dreamers do. 
If he could speak he would not have us weep, 
But souls awake whose Captain lies asleep. 
Edward S. Van Zile 

GONE IS ULYSSES 

/^ ONE is Ulysses ! From his native 

shores. 
Which knew and loved his tread, his bark 

has pushed. 
Urging a path through waves and ways 

unknown. 
Gone is Ulysses ! How his eager soul, 



ELEGIAC VERSE 155 

Forever questing where high virtue gleamed. 
Led us to newer conquests, further peaks 
From which our eyes beheld still wider 

views ! 
He gave us vision when our souls were 

cold; 
Gave us his own most ardent zeal for truth. 
For justice, for our nation's name and fame ! 
Gone is Ulysses! Have we heart to sing 
His perfect praise? One fine memorial — 
His race's reverent love — attests his worth; 
"Most blameless he," and so he needs not 

praise. 
"Death closes all"? Ah, no: to such an 

one 
Death brings new life — if here or there, who 

knows? 
One thing is sure: his purpose holds for us. 
That newer world he sought is ours to seek — 
A world of justice, kindliness, and truth, 
Founded on steadfast honor, swept by airs 
Of purest freedom. This, his noble aim. 
He leaves to us, a priceless legacy — 
A lodestar! Let us follow it, and him! 
Marie L. Eglinton 

OUR COLONEL 

"P\EEP loving, well knowing 

His world and its blindness, 
A heart overflowing 

With measureless kindness. 



156 ROOSEVELT 



Undaunted in labor, 

(And Death was a trifle), 
Steel-true as a sabre. 

Direct as a rifle. 

All Man in his doing. 
All Boy in his laughter. 

He fronted, unruing. 

The Now and Hereafter, 

A storm-battling cedar, 
A comrade, a brother — 

Oh, such was our Leader, 
Beloved as no other! 

When weaker souls faltered 
His courage remade us 

Whose tongue never paltered, 
Who never betrayed us. 

His hand on your shoulder 
All honors exceeding. 

What breast but was bolder 
Because he was leading ! 

And still in our trouble. 
In peace or in war-time. 

His word shall redouble 
Our strength as aforetime. 

When wrongs cry for righting, 
No odds shall appall us; 



ELEGIAC VERSE 157 



To clean, honest fighting 
Again he will call us. 

And, cowboys or dough-boys, 
We'll follow his drum, boys. 

Who never said "Go, boys!" 
But always said "Come, boys!" 
Arthur Guiterman 

ROOSEVELT, THE LEADER 

" T WAS ever a fighter, so— one fight more 

The best and the last! 
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, 
and forebore 
And bade me creep past; 
No ! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my 
peers 
The heroes of old." 

From her red veins the Mother fashioned 

him 
In gay mood of her richest burgeoning; 
No stinting made she of her treasure-house, 
But moulded him to quick warm sympathies. 
To valiant purposes, broad-shouldered 

deeds. 

Into his heart she poured her flaming East, 
Wine of her West, her North, her tremulous 

South; 
Matched in him glory of a Continent, 



158 ROOSEVELT 



Made him of clay and star-dust— gave him 

feet 
And wings. Like molten flame she poured 

her light. 
Sent him swift sight to captain our stern 

need, 
To cleanse with laughter our too heavy air. 
To take away the scorn of common things, 
To give the cup of water to the dog. 
To lead unspeaking children by the hand. 

Like writhing spawn, hke serpents of the 

slime. 
He shook the cowardices from our hearts 
And startled us to seeing; sternly he taught 
The measure of true manhood, unafraid 
Largely to love and valiantly to hate — 
This flinger-back of creeping littleness. 
This scorner of the underbrush of thought. 

This was thy son, America — this man 
Wrought in a furnace of thy fashioning. 
Unsparingly his blade of spirit cut 
Into our shams and foul hypocrisies. 
This was thy son, formed from the roots of 

earth. 
And from the lifting tree-tops— this, thy son. 
Fashioned of brawny stuff, of elements 
Not of perfection, but warm humanness — 
No haloed saint but every inch a man. 
Mixed with the lightning, thunder, with the 

night and dawn — 



ELEGIAC VERSE 159 



Of great compassion, of unpitying scorn; 
With unblind eyes, seeing new paths to 

break, 
He followed far, a burning Galahad— 
This man of vision with the childlike heart ! 

Earth is the poorer for his passing — earth 
Richer for that he stayed with us awhile; 
And some uncharted star-space is come 

bright 
With pleasure of his presence. 
Eagerly he went from us, as he had lived — 
Swiftly and passionately as of old; 
Impatient to search out new eagle trail, 
Glimpsing the far horizons, how should he 
Go else than swiftly into reddening dawn ? 

Here on the common way was all the stuff 
Whereof he built his heaven; somewhere 

must be 
Lightness and cheer and sight of homely 

things — 
Of pipe and dog and children at their 

play. . . . 
Surely his kindred greet him in the halls 
Of the high-hearted at some festive board 
Deep in Valhalla, while a shout rings out, 
A pledge of fellowship— song by the fire— 
"Skoal! skoal! skoal! Our Leader has 

arrived ! 
Our Champion strong, our fearless fighting 

Man!" 



160 ROOSEVELT 



In fine and simple manliness he grasps 
Hands with heroic hands, he who had need— ^ 
"Need of the sky and business with the 

grass" — 
And fine brave business with his fellow men. 
And with quick hands they welcome him — 

the hosts 
Of those gone forth in battle for the Right — 
In some new France to lead his Volunteers, 
In some new sky to find his Flying Boy ! 

Mary Siegrist 

TO FRASER'S DEATH-MASK OF 
ROOSEVELT 

^AN this be your face, this whose calm 

repose 
Portrays no presence but cold, dreamless 

sleep 
Where frown or laughter never more will 

creep, 
Wrinkling, about the eyes Death sighed to 

close ? 
Ah, Roosevelt, when your shining spirit rose 
It carried with it to the unknown deep 
Something the outworn visage could not 

keep. 
But each man's heart who loves you keeps 

and knows. 

Something of blended energy and mirth. 
Of will to work, and lust to laugh and love. 



ELEGIAC VERSE 161 



Something that scorned false pride and 

knew not fear. 
This is not you, this bit of smooth, still 

earth, 
For you walked straightway to the Throne 

above 
And asked God cheerily, "What's to do up 

^^^^^" L. Upton Wilkinson 

THE STAR 

(Theodore Roosevelt: Epiphany, 1919) 

/^REAT soul, to all brave souls akin, 

High bearer of the torch of truth; 
Have you not gone to marshal in 
Those eager hosts of youth? 

Flung outward by the battle's tide, 
They met in regions dim and far; 

And you — in whom youth never died — 
Shall lead them, as a star! 

Marion Couihouy Smith 

THE CONSOLER 

(The statue of Lincoln at the Court-house, 
Newark, N. J.) 

f SAW the great bronze Lincoln, strong, 
serene. 
Seated above the turmoil of the street, 
The restless life-tides rolling to his feet — 

A shrine of rest in all that shifting scene. 



162 ROOSEVELT 



I longed to run to him — as children do 
In wistful play, with reverence unex- 
pressed — 
Climb to his knees, and lean upon his 
breast, 
To seek him in my grief, and find him true; 

To cry to him, "Roosevelt is dead — is dead ! 
Oh, have you known? Our mighty 

leader sleeps ! " 
And then to hear, within my own heart's 
deeps. 
His voice, and feel his touch upon my head — 

Calming the tumult of my spirit's woe — 
Speaking on God's behalf: "Peace, peace 

to you ! 
Remember that He said, 'What now I do 
Ye know not, but hereafter ye shall know.'" 
Marion Couihouy Smith 

"GIGANTIC FIGURE OF A MIGHTY 
AGE" 

/^IGANTIC figure of a mighty age! 

How shall I chant the tribute of thy 
praise. 
As statesman, soldier, scientist, or sage? 

Thou wert so great in many different ways. 
And yet in all there was a single aim — 
To fight for truth with sword and tongue 
and pen ! 



ELEGIAC VERSE 163 

In wilderness, as in the halls of fame. 

Thy courage made thee master over men. 
Like some great magnet, that from distant 
poles 
Attracts the particles and holds them fast, 
So thou didst draw all men, and fill their 
souls 
With thy ideals — naught caring for their 
past. 
Their race or creed. There was one only 

test: 
To love our country and to serve it best ! 

Leon Huhner 

HE HATED SHAM 

(Recited by Julia Arthur at the Inaugural Meeting 
of the Memorial Roosevelt Church, St. Nicholas Church, 
Fifth Avenue, New York, January 25, 1920) 

T_IE hated sham. His whole life through 

For virile truth he led the fight; 
When lies and slanders hid the view 

He fought through darkness into light. 
What though it cost him fleeting power. 

What though it shortened life's brief span ? 
He saw the peril, seized the hour. 

And spoke the bitter truth to man. 
He conquered death. His v/ork here 
through. 

He turned the hght out, unafraid, 
If but he had God's work to do. 

And trod the dark path, undismayed. 



164 ROOSEVELT 



He is not dead; he's only gone 
A bit ahead. Lo ! in the van 

His sturdy spirit still fights on 

And points the way of truth to man ! 

John W. Low 

"HE IS ALL OURS" 

(Written by request for the Roosevelt Memorial 
Meeting at Concord, N. H., February 9, 1919) 

T F I could forge you verses that would ring 
Like sledges on the anvil, I would sing; 
The song should be a psean, not a dirge; 
It should have all the tumult and the surge 
Of endless waters charging up the rocks; 
It should be loud with trumpets; reel with 

shocks 
Of meeting arms. Then he that sings would 

twist 
His thoughts into a sentence like a fist, 
To strike Death in the face, and boldly say, 
"You cannot take this man of men away; 
He is all ours, and we will keep him here, — 
A torch, a sword, a battle-shout, a cheer!" 

Our Theodore was fit to be a pal 

Of England's best-loved king, her brave, 

bluff Hal; 
Who ran to every task, as to a sport; 
Who leaped, a lion with lions, at Agincourt; 
But prayed to God it yet might be his lot 
To put a fowl in every peasant's pot. 



ELEGIAC VERSE 165 



When God makes men like these, He takes 

a mould 
Large as the world, and stints not with His 

gold. 
He says: "I make a man in every part; 
I throne the royal head upon the royal 

heart." Wg^dell Phillips Stafford 

CID OF THE WEST 

(The author of this poem is ninety-one years of age. 
An autograph copy handsomely framed has been pre- 
sented to the Association for hanging in Roosevelt 
House. Editor.) 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

(Died at daybreak, January 6, 1919) 

I^NELL nor deep minute-gun gave the 
world warning; 
Silent as sunrise he sped on his way; 
Dark nor delay for him. 
Over earth's dusky rim 
Into God's Open at breaking of day! 
Friend of the humblest man, peer of the 
highest, 
Knight of the lance that was never in 
rest — 
O there are tears for him, 
O there are cheers for him — 
Liberty's Champion, Cid of the West! 

Lion-heart Leader, vowed to humanity, 
Braving the heights for his brothers below. 



166 ROOSEVELT 



Earth will his impress bear 
Long as she swims in air — 
Ocean wed ocean, the wild river flow! 
Fervent American, service was joy to him, 
God, Home and Country were shrined in 
his breast; 
Songs will be sung for him, 
Banners outflung for him — 
Liberty's Champion, Cid of the West! 
Edna Dean Proctor 

THE DEATH OF ROOSEVELT 

r)VT of the West the Wind, 

Out of the night the Word, 
The giant trees on the hills bent low, 
And the souls of men were stirred. 

A tremor shook the earth, 
A message moved the sea. 
And round the world ran the prescient 

thrill 
Of dread calamity. 

The morning flashed the truth. 
The earth gave back a cry, 
A cry as old as the grief of man, — 
"How do the Mighty die?" 

"A smitten battleship. 

Fearless we see him go, — 

But what of the fight on the sunset sea? 

What of the conquering foe?" 



ELEGIAC VERSE 167 

The West- Wind cried, "He slept!— 
And lo, a mystery — 

There was no fight as the sun went down, 
There was no Enemy," 

"The darkened Dreadnought moved 
To th' eternal deep, 
And drifted out on the moonless tide, 
Convoyed by Death and Sleep." 

Silent the great West- Wind, 

Sorrow on earth and sea. 

But there was a song in the soul of man, — 

Of victory. „, tt- ■ ■ r, 

Ineresa Virginia Beard 

MASTER OF HEARTS OF MEN 

IVf ASTER of hearts of men that justice 
seek, 
Audacious, proud, intolerant; with right 
In thought and deed, the oil that fed the 
light 
Flaming within you; comrade of the meek; 
Friend of the crushed; contempt of them 
that reek 
Of profit by the exercise of might; 
Lover of jungle, prairie, mountain height. 
Before your bier we stand and cannot speak ! 

Not always have we heeded when your 
hand, 
Rough with large usage, through perplex- 
ing days 



168 ROOSEVELT 



Would guide; not always could we under- 
stand 
Your brusque invasion of our easy ways; 
Yet we shall miss the word of sharp com- 
mand, 
The impassioned speech, enthralling 
though it flays. 

John Lincoln Blauss 



PILOT AND PROPHET 



(~\^ what divine adventure has he gone? 

Beyond what peaks of dawn 
Is he now faring? On what errand blest 
Has his impulsive heart now turned? No 

rest 
Could be the portion of his tireless soul. 
He seeks some passionate goal 
Where he can labor on till Time is not, 
And earth is nothing but a thing forgot. 

II 

Pilot and Prophet ! as the years increase 
The sorrow of your passing will not cease. 
We love to think of you still moving on 
From sun to blazing sun. 
From planet to far planet, to some height 
Of clean perfection in the Infinite, 
Where with the wise Immortals you can find 



ELEGIAC VERSE 169 

The Peace you fought for with your heart 

and mind. 
Yet from that bourne where you are jour- 
neying 
Sometimes we think we hear you whispering, 
" I went away, O world so false and true, 
I went away — with still so much to do!" 
Charles Hanson Towne 

HALF-MAST THE FLAG 
(Memorial Day, February 9, 1919) 

LJALF-MAST the flag, and let the bell be 
^^ tolled: 

A tower of strength he was, whose 
presence drew 
The people around him, and to-day is rolled 

A wave of unaccustomed sorrow through 
The land he loved; whatever now be said, 
The latest great American is dead. 

How quick he slipped from us — this man of 
might, 

Heroic courage, life-abounding ways ! 
When God's great angel in the silent night 

Brought, though invisible to others' gaze. 
Some whispered message, he obedient heard, 
Left all, and followed him without a word. 

We loved this man who loved not fame nor 
wealth. 
But service, first; not perfect, nor divine. 



170 ROOSEVELT 



But humanlike, and full of moral health, 
And prompt to look beyond the outward 
sign 
Of race, or creed, or party, find the plan 
Of God himself, and recognize the man. 

How true his vision was ! And how his 

voice 

Seemed as a breeze does on a sultry day ! 

Long years ago he made life's master-choice. 

Like a brave knight of conscience, and 

alway 

Dared wield the club of language clear and 

strong 
To shield the right and batter down the 
wrong. 

He stood for honest purposes: unroll 
The record of his years, you seek in vain 

For life's disfigurements — there lies the 
scroll. 
No blots upon it, nothing to explain; 

But what is worthy and to all men's sight 

As open as a landscape to the light. 

Farewell, great Soul ! Thou surely wilt fare 
well 
On that mysterious and adventurous way 
Which thou hast gone; in those realms also 
dwell 
Truth, right, and honor, and God's love 
bears sway. 



ELEGIAC VERSE 171 

To these, as in our bounds of time and place, 
Thou art no stranger; they will know thy 
face. 

There Washington and Lincoln stretch to 
thee 
The hand of welcome; they are working 
still 
For some high end as once for liberty; 

Thou art at one with them in aim and will. 
The peer of them in doing well thy part. 
And their companion in the Nation's heart. 

So lived this man, and died, and lives 
again — 
A white dynamic memory in the land. 
Oh, what a heritage, my countrymen! 
He'll plead forever now, with voice and 
hand. 
Our righteous causes, and his power will 

grow. 
Cease tolling, bell, and let the bugles blow ! 
Samuel Valentine Cole 



TOLL THE BELLS 

^OLL the bells, toll the bells. 
Let the world know 

A whole nation s woe; 
Toll the bells, toll the bells. 

Solemn and slow. 



172 ROOSEVELT 



The knell it has sounded, 

A leader is dead; 
His brave voice is silent, 

His great spirit fled. 
Not now we praise him. 

Except by our grief; 
The future his virtues 

Will carve in relief. 
Over his pall 
Let our tears fall; 
Profound is our sorrow. 
Dark looms the morrow. 

He spent and was spent 

For truth and for right; 
He gave of his best, 

He fought the good fight. 
The fight is not ended. 

For traitors still throng, 
Though he who defended 

His country from wrong — 
Who bore every test — 
Has passed into rest. 

Bring garlands of flowers 

To cover his bier; 
Let not a coward 

Dare to come near. 
The man of the age 

Has gone from our ken; 
The world will ne'er see 

His equal again. 



ELEGIAC VERSE 173 

Toll the bells, toll the bells, 

Solemn and slow; 

Let the world know 

Our love and our woe. 
Toll the bells, toll the bells. 

Solemn and slow. 

Grace D. Vanamee 



ROOSEVELT DEAD 

ROOSEVELT dead! Suddenly there 

comes a void; 
A part of life itself is torn away. 
Gone are the endless, sudden hours he joyed. 
Gone is the vigor that has marked his way. 
Back through the varied years the memory 

goes, 
And through them moves his strenuous 

figure still, 
Tense with the life that never shrank at 

blows. 
Inspiring others with his force of will. 
What matters it that sometimes he was 

wrong .? 
Those petty troubles soon die out in space. 
Say only this — his spirit great and strong 
Stirred up a nation to its worth and place. 
E'er challenging, he flashed across our page. 
The Coeur-de-Lion of the present age. 

Robert A. Donaldson 



174 ROOSEVELT 



"A MOURNING CLOUD LIES BLACK 
ACROSS THE SUN" 

A MOURNING cloud lies black across 

the sun, 

For all that you have been, that you have 

done; 

A hundred millions left, and yet not one 

To take your place. 

We need you, life-blood of the Nation's life. 

One who rang true when traitor thoughts 

were rife. 

One who led straight through all the years 

of strife 

And lying doubt. 

Can you forgive those unforgiving years ? 

The little men who voiced their little fears, 

To veil the cancered cowardice that sears 

A Nation's soul.? 

We should have known you, champion of 

the right, 

Who stood alone, a challenge to the fight, 

To urge us on. . . . And silently, to-night. 

We understand. . 

Anonymous 

A BROTHER GONE 

T_JOW can we manage with our Brother 

gone .'' 
We smaller folk who looked to him to voice 
our voicelessness ? 



ELEGIAC VERSE 175 

We have not lost him — he has but gone 

ahead a Httle way 
To gain new knowledge and new strength, 

new power to see, 
The end from the beginning, 
So that when next our earth be ripe for his 

endeavor. 
He shall return and lead us on again, a 

little nearer 
To the light that shines upon him now so 

clearly, 
Making plain to him the path he trod so 

manfully each day of all his days, 
We do not call him to come back from that 

free plane where now he moves un- 
trammelled — 
Unbeset by littleness, by envy of his power 

to read our hearts 
And blazen forth the message that he found 

there. 
So that those in highest place among us 

needs must hear and heed. 
The will of us — the silent ones — who work 

and think and feel. 

And are America! ^ „ 7 

Gene Baker 

THE HAPPY WARRIOR 

IN early years your valiant fight began, 
When in the wilds you sought the 
boon of health; 
Your spirit then revealed a brimming wealth 



176 ROOSEVELT 



Of faith and force, which told the coming 

man. 
In later days, more confident and strong, 
You chose to serve where public storms were 

rife; 
You strove with zeal to free the nation's life 
From lust of ofiice, greed and vested wrong. 
When flames of war enveloped half the world, 
When truth was throttled by a crazy king. 
You seized the lash and whipped us, loitering. 
And roused our might, till hell was back- 
ward hurled. 
You proved a victor till your last life-breath; 
You could not stay the subtle warrior, 

Thomas Curtis Clark 

DOES HE HUNT WITH THE GREAT 
ORION? 

"r\OES he hunt with the great Orion over 
glad ethereal hills? 
Does he soar with the gleaming eagle on 
the trail of his eagle son? 
Does he seek out Time and the Sibyl in 
their nebula domiciles. 
Dim outposts of creation ? What race is 
now to run? 

Does he follow the flame of Dante up the 
rapturous planet path 
Through the shouts of the old crusaders, 
— Uke the cheers 'mid which he trod 



ELEGIAC VERSE 177 



When he fought the Faith's good battles, 
whirhng his sword of wrath, — 
To the snow-white Rose of the Blessed 
irradiate with God? 

By Aldebaran the ruby and Altair the pearl, 
and by 
The golden-winged Arcturus in whose 
gaze the winters melt. 
Would we might in fair Greek fashion set 
a new name in the sky 
And commemorate a splendor with the 
star of Roosevelt ! 

In the heavens of our Republic shall that 
lodestar still shine clear, 
Pure glory of the spirit, all mortal shadow 
gone. 
The burning-hearted Patriot, more potent 
and more dear 
As forever through the darkness his lustre 
leads us on. 

Katharine Lee Bates 

"WHEN SHALL WE LOOK UPON 
HIS LIKE AGAIN?" 

"VyHEN shall we look upon his like 

again?" 
The whole world echoes the despairing cry ! 
No common clay could hold thee, prince of 
men ! 



178 ROOSEVELT 

Thy spirit burst its chains ! It could not 

die! 
Thy soul upborne to worlds beyond our ken 
Lives on ! 

Though for thy fleshly form we sigh. 
Thy soul still speaks, as did thy mighty pen 
For righteousness ! Thou didst exemplify 
The truth incarnate, justice, liberty ! 
Equality, fraternity didst teach ! 
O flaming torch of immortality. 
True beacon hght thou art, whose rays shall 

reach 
The hearts of men, beyond the halls of fame, 
And unborn millions shall revere thy name ! 
May L. Restarick 

ELECTION DAY 

(1920) 

"ITIT'E miss thy figure in the throng, 

O Knight, in silver armor clad. 
The white plume gone, that led so long, 
Why should we not be sad? 

We hail the day that right prevails. 
Glad that once more is Reason here. 

Yet turn, to lay love's immortelles 
On our dead Leader's bier. 

Our Leader! Still, O mighty one. 
Thy spirit guides us. Though afar, 



ELEGIAC VERSE 179 

Think on this Httle world of ours 
Who wast its brightest Star. 

Margaret Boyce Bonnell 



FEAST OF THE EPIPHANY 

(Theodore Roosevelt: obiit January 6, 1919) 
IT was Star-time when he died. 

Twelve long nights from that first Christmas- 
tide, 
By the chronicles of Bethlehem town, 
Guardian shepherds wandered up and down 
In the starlight, watching from the hill, 
Watching, wondering why the song was still 
That had promised mighty things to them 
From that low dark cell in Bethlehem. 
Eastward lay the signals of the dawn, 
Faintly roseate, heralding the sun; 
None could see the rhythmic dip and stride 
Of the desert camels, one by one, 
Nor that swaying caravan behold. 
Heavily rich with perfume, color, and gold, 
As it followed — followed — that strange guide 
Whose keen flame should light the altar-fire 
Of all days, and wake the appealing chime 
Of the world's song and the world's desire. 

Ages passed: again the Christmas-tide. 
— It was star-time, dawn-time, wonder-time, 
When he died. 



180 ROOSEVELT 



It was morning when he died. 
Died, we say? — When that immortal Hght 
Sank behind the horizon's golden bar 
Over the gentle hills of Bethlehem town, 
Was it death — the hiding of the Star? 
When the eternal heaven received its grace. 
When, in the infinite-spreading halls of 

space 
That enkindling flame went down. 
Was there a sound of wailing, borne 
From tear-filled eyes and souls forlorn? 
No: the placid camels swung and swayed 
Back through desert-stretches; and each 

heart 
That had watched the great light dawn and 

fade 
In its infinite gladness bore a part. 

It was Star-time when he died. 

Twelve nights from the Christmas-tide, 
By the runes of Bethlehem town, 
As the hosts that shone and sang 
In the night went up and down 
Till the halls of morning rang. 
And the ages, all along. 
Keep the light, and hear the song; 
As, beyond the brightening East, 
With their rhythmic dip and stride. 
Came the caravan to the feast, — 
Through all times that ever are. 
We shall see and know the Star. 



ELEGIAC VERSE 181 

Death can hide not from our view, 

Death can take not as his toll 

Any part of that free soul 

That so long we loved and knew. 

Rest, great heart, — so great to love and 

give ! 
It was Star-time when you died; 
It is Morning — for you live. 

Marion Couthouy Smith 



THE MEETING 

"They shall mount up with wings, as eagles." Isaiah. 

TTPWARD and onward his brave soul is 
flying, 

Above the world-tumult of sorrows and 
fears, 
To the heights that are reached through 
the gate we call dying, 
Beyond all our praises, our grief and our 
tears. 

Down from the void comes the deep sound 
of singing; 
Look outward and upward; who is it 
that sings.'' 
Who comes on wide pinions, the love- 
message bringing.'* 
Have we not known it — the Voice of the 
Wings ? 



182 ROOSEVELT 

Who comes with the rushing winds down- 
ward to meet him, 

Over the blue, and beyond the cloud-rift ? 
Quentin the Eagle is flying to greet him,^ 

He of the air, he, the strong and the swift. 

Cease then your grieving and tears, for the 
knowing 
That One not alone has passed out 
through the night; 
For fair is the journey and joyful the going 
Where father and son have flown on to 
the Light. 

Ella Grandom Smith 



MY KINSMAN 

"r\EAD! 

The one word sped 
Into my heart as sinks the lead 
Into the bosom of the sea, 
Flung by a fisher carelessly. 
Then straight between my prism tears 
There intervenes 
Swift shifting scenes, 
A pageantry of finished years. 

As through a haze 

I see, 

Indistinctly, 

A mighty city's maze, 

And as I gaze. 



ELEGIAC VERSE 183 

A boy asthmatic, frail, 

Wasted, pale, 

Yet driven by a force within 

To win. 

In him I see 

My Kinsman, striving sturdily. 

The city's vapors fade and drift, 

And through a rift 

A cowboy rides in sun-bathed air. 

While everywhere 

The cattle graze on billowed plain. 

Then war with Spain, 

"To arms! One weaker needs relief!" 

The plainsmen heard, 

And at the word 

They come and call him Chief. 

Deep in the conflict's glare, I see 

My Kinsman, fighting valiantly. 

Again the scene is rent; 

As President 

My Kinsman stands. 

Wielding power with simple might 

For right; 

While the great from many lands 

Offer homage, make demands. 

Yet by neither force nor word 

Is he stirred. 

Faithful as he feels his trust. 

All who seek him find him just. 

For he meets them, man to man. 



184 ROOSEVELT 



World renowned or artisan. 
He, the great American. 

My sight grows dim, 

For time 

And trouble climb 

The slope with him. 

Pillowed on his evening bed 

He turns his head. 

"Good night, . . . 

Put out the light"— 

No need of light for such as he, 

Full Kinsman of humanity. 

Carlos Day 

THE BEACON-LIGHT 

TN the gray, dim light where Time is not, 
Where star-dust falls and dreams arise; 
A fearless soul winged its earthward flight 
And clove the space that veils the skies. 

When His mighty plan unfolded slow, 
And the rage of battle shook the world; 
When the seas were strewn with wrecks and 

blood, 
And the flags of Right were almost furled — 
A voice rang out through the night of flame. 
That veiled the earth where death-lights 

shone. 
And called to men to awake, to fight ! 
To give their lives to protect their own! 



ELEGIAC VERSE 185 

From sunlit plains in the golden West, 
Where tall grasses creep to the riverside; 
From snow-hung pines to the purple gulf. 
The nation rose, like a surging tide. 

In that far-off realm where star-dust falls. 
That fearless soul stands guard, alone; 
While his message flames, a beacon-light, 
Protect this land that is your own ! 

Murray Ketcham Kirk 

RESURGIT THEODORE 

^^UR champion, Great-Heart, answered 
the stern call 
To higher service. Straight the victors' 

cheers 
Were stilled. While throbbing anguish, 
burning tears. 
Revealed his sway within the hearts of all. 
Even those who cursed him, men who dared 
to brave 
His fiery anger as he dauntless stood 
In truceless battle for the common good 
Now pay belated tribute — at his grave. 

To you, who long have seen, with vision 

clear. 

And, seeing, manfully have kept the faith, 

Is now vouchsafed a presence, yet more 

dear. 

Released from the impotent hand of death. 



186 ROOSEVELT 



Our leader still, in very truth, is he: 
For us; and for the ages yet to be. 

Clarence H. Willey 

"THE HUNTER, TIRING OF THE 
CHASE" 

'T'HE hunter, tiring of the chase, 
Across the hills and streams, 
Has drawn his blanket to his face 
And lost himself in dreams. 

The soldier, scarred and seamed by war. 

Is wearied of the fight, 
Nor all the thunders of a Thor 

Shall break his rest this night. 

The orator, whose voice was heard 

Above the crash of day. 
Now — how we startle at the word. 

The word he does not say. 

The statesman — he whose whisper rolled 

Through corridors and halls. 
Has sought the quiet, cloistered fold 

Of ancient earthly walls. 

The author drops his heavy quill; 

What forceful words are penned? 
The whole world leans to read their thrill 
And reads but this: 

The End. 
Edmund Vance Cooke 



ELEGIAC VERSE 187 



"WITHIN THE TORRENT'S ONWARD 
WHIRL" 

"lA/ITHIN the torrent's onward whirl, 

there hes 
A massive rock of granite, high and bold. 
Serene above the water 'round it rolled, 
How firm and free its rugged outlines rise ! 
But though all-crumbling time its strength 

defies 
A tender growth of moss makes soft the cold. 
Rough sides and dainty flowers find timid 

hold 
On that high part most near the sunny skies. 

So shall endure our hero's endless fame, 
In bold relief above the human stream; 
So grand that years cannot efface his name 
And yet so true, our nation's love supreme 
CHngs 'round his life; and youth's aspiring 

aim 
Seeks foothold wnere his stars of glory 

^ * Mabel Kinney Hall 

OF HIM WHO LOVED NOT REST 

X-JOW shall we say " God rest him ! " 

Of him who loved not rest. 
But the pathless plunge in the forest 

And the pauseless quest, 
And the call of the billowing mountains 

Crest beyond crest? 



188 ROOSEVELT 



Hope, rather, God will give him 

His spirit's need — 
Rapture of ceaseless motion 

That is rest indeed. 
As the cataract sleeps on the cliff-side, 

White with speed. 

So shall his soul go ranging 

Forever, swift and wide. 
With a strong man's rejoicing 

As he loved to ride; 
But all our days are poorer 

For the part of him that died. 

Helen Gray Cone 

WE MISS HIM SO! 

"I^ZE miss him so ! In clash of men and 
things 
While discord reigns and class and interest 

jar 
And futile voices clamor, loud and far, 
And systems shake with overturn of kings 
And loosing of old bonds; while crashing 
rings 
The storm of alien hands and thoughts, 

to mar 
And desecrate the Temple wherein are 
Our things most holy; while still Cowardice 
clings 
To Sloth — Oh, for his voice to sound 
the call! 



ELEGIAC VERSE 189 



Oh, for his arm to Hft the standard 
clear. 
Where loyal men may throng to do 
or die ! 
To lead us forth from farm and flat and 
hall 
To battle for the Right he held so 
dear! 
Oh, for his hand to brand the He a 

^^^ • William P. F. Ferguson 

THE RIDERLESS HORSE 

/^LOSE ranks and ride on! 

Though his saddle be bare. 
The bullet is sped. 
Now the dead 
Cannot care. 

Close ranks and ride on! 
Let the pitiless stride 
Of the host that he led, 
Though his saddle be red. 
Sweep on like the tide. 
Close ranks and ride on ! 
The banner he bore 
For God and the right 
Never faltered before. 
Quick, up with it, then! 
For the right! For the Hght ! 
Lest legions of men 
Be lost in the night! 

Harold T. Pulsifer 



190 ROOSEVELT 



NOT DEAD 

"1\7'E cannot think of him as dead. 

The halls of time will always ring 
With many a great and noble thing 
That echoes in his fearless tread. 
As loyally life's race he ran 
He was a true epitome 
Of Freedom and of Liberty, 
Praising alike both God and man. 

How kind that Mighty Hand that spared 
A racking end. With rest more deep 
He gave to His beloved sleep 
And left a memory unimpaired. 
His name is like a torch on high, 
An oriflamme for all to see 
Who love his banner of the free. 
He is not dead! He cannot die! 

Minnie D. Wilbur 



'TIS NOT ALONE IN FLANDERS 
FIELDS 

(T. R.) 

''piS not alone in Flanders Fields 

The poppies grow; 
To him who spent his life for us 

Comes Death's fell blow; 
Our greatest Soldier of the Right 

Is stricken low. 



ELEGIAC VERSE 191 

More dauntless spirit never beat 

In any breast; 
More valiant sword was never drawn 

On any quest. 
Now, wept by all who love the land, 

He sinks to rest. 

We vow that we shall wage his fight 

Upon the foe; 
We vow that we shall keep his faith, 

Because we know 
'Tis not alone in Flanders Fields 

The poppies grow. 

McLandburgh Wilson 

WE NEED NO MARBLE SHAFT 

^^7E need no marble shaft to rise 

To lift your glory to the skies; 
Nor do we need the painter's art, 
To show in you that lion heart; 
Nor copper plate, in bronze to read 
Your excellence in thought and deed; 
Nor statue, nor ensculptured cast, 
To mark your presence with our past. 

You lived your life for such as we. 
You paid your price ungrudgingly, 
You gave us courage, strength to be 
Men, in the world's fight for liberty. 

You brought new lustre to the stars 
Upon our banner's field of blue; 



192 ROOSEVELT 



The white is pure, the red more red. 
Because we loved and trusted you. 

Hiram Moe Greene 

THE STAG 

A STAG — upon time's quivering heights 

he stood, 
And sniffed the burning danger of the years; 
Herd-leader of a clean, all-conquering brood, 
Whose forebears blazed the trails of pioneers. 
The new Demosthenes ! — work, play that 

cheers. 
His creed ; the seeds he sowed of brotherhood 
Shall grow to trees — an adamantine wood — 
To stem the tidal-hate of hemispheres. 

Pro Patria! his cry — unmoved, unbroken, 

He dipped his pen in fire to the end; 

His heart was like the oak, and honor's token 

He passed as coin to men; he was a friend 

Whose golden words shall live while speech 

is spoken, — 

Bright battle-stars, when darkling years 

descend. ^ ^ ,,.„ 

J . Corson MiUer 

AMERICA'S TRIUMVIRATE 

TTHREE masters among men our land 

has known: 
A Washington, who came when Freedom 
spoke; 



ELEGIAC VERSE 193 

A Lincoln, like none else, and all our own; 
A Roosevelt, the heir to Great-Heart's cloak. 

Let dedicated currency and coins 
Declare these as our peerage and our pride; 
These are the sons of heroism's loins, 
Of one who took Columbia for his bride. 

Though each was born to lead a tragic day 
As heroes must, unto its fabled place 
With such a lineage, our nation may 
Fear not the future outcome of her race. 

Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, — what fame 
Nobler than repetition of each name? 
Isabel Fiske Conant 

RING DOWN LIFE'S MAMMOTH 
CURTAIN 

T) ING down Life's mammoth curtain, 

gold and red. 
On the majestic Dead ! 
Lay laurels on his head. 
Whose eyes went bravely smiling to the 

strife. 
In peace or war. 
For him no secret door. 
Heart-clean, and with clean hands. 
He fought upon the battle-ground of life. 
Soimd ye triumphant bugles, blown by 

Youth, 



194 ROOSEVELT 

As shibboleths of Truth ! 
Swing out America's banner to the breeze, 
Commemorative of gallant memories, 
Entwined with deeds of his of tongue and 

pen. 
And the grim hardihood of body's strength. 
Which made of him at length. 
Who had a master-mind, a man 'mongst 

men. 

Let the drums roll ! 

Let the bells toll! 

A Soldier's borne along the ghostly ways: 

Silent in death he cannot hear our praise. 

The stalwart, storm-tossed oak has fallen 
low. 

Defiant to Life's winds, and rain and snow. 

Death's lightning-stroke came down at even- 
glow. 

Wherefore we pay him homage, — we who 
loved him so. 

Let the guns speak on river, coast and bay, 

And where the stern-eyed, Yankee dread- 
noughts stray. 

Let thunderous salvoes fleet, 

Let clanging, clamorous, booming partings 
greet, 

Let epic tumults of applauding meet 

T. R., beloved, 

As he, with hurrying feet, 

Adventures out upon Death's lonely way. 



ELEGIAC VERSE 195 



Statesman, Patriot, Lover and Liver of Life, 
From out the haven of peace, and across 

the maelstrom of strife. 
We will not say farewell; 
Nay, visioning the Mystic Lily, white, 
And stirred by dreams of the Sacred 

Asphodel, 
Perpetually bright, — 

We say that even in death, life does not fail. 
And so we call to thee. 
Undauntedly and ruggedly 
Armored in Life's good deeds and Love's 

proud shining mail, 
We call to thee. 
And with a Nation's massed-up, mighty 

shout. 
We give thee HAIL ! j ^^^^^^ j^^^^ 

APOTHEOSIS 

ONE MAN speaks: 

■p ESILIENT world, Gargantuan, pictur- 
esque, 
Blown by no breath of dire caducity. 
World of gigantic, comic vanity, 
Of shapes fantastic, lovable, grotesque! 
Would that Cervantes, Shakespeare, Ra- 
belais — 
Prohfic three — had lived to see the hour 
When Nature's self put forth her comic 

power, 
Quixote's antitype of Oyster Bay! 



196 ROOSEVELT 



O gargoyle shape! The smile dentiferous, 
The cowboy hat, eyeglasses, and big stick. 
The gesture of "The Luck of Roaring 

Camp"! 
Gay wilt thou live, timeless, vociferous, 
Breathing the air of egotism thick 
With Falstaff, Tartarin, and Mrs. Gamp. 

ANOTHER answers: 

Be still, thou ribald bard! Hast thou no 

shame ? 
When thine eyes rest on one of Plutarch's 

kind. 
The scion of an elder race, art blind? 
Be still and fear a living bush aflame 
With puissant will; revere an august name 
Which gallant boys in days to come will 

find 
In many a tale by new Froissarts designed 
To prick clean hearts to court a shining fame. 

Hark! what strange horns are sounding! 

Silence, bard ! 
Siegfried and Roland from the welkin's dome 
Their bugles blow, and bursting mortal 

shard — 
Earth's ashes to earth's ashes, loam to 

loam — 
Theodore the Viking journeys to Asgard 
To find with the Msir his empyreal home. 
Russell J. Wilbur 



ELEGIAC VERSE 197 



THE COURIER 

(January 6. 1919) 
HTHERE came a courier in the night 

Knocking at the door. 
And he who waited spoke but once. 
And spoke no more. 

He who was ours for many golden years 

Was suddenly gone; 
And in our souls, because of him, 

A glory shone. Margaret de Kay 

WHEN HE DIED 

T WOULD not sing his greatness. 

Stronger strings, 
With clearer tones than has my harp, have 

sung 
His strength and wisdom; sweeter voices 

rung 
With praise of his high grasp on mighty 

things. 
Nor would I voice the battle-smoke that 

clings 
About his name, which is wT-it large among 
Large names in History. I have no tongue 
To sound above the paean a nation sings. 

My loss is personal. I never knew. 

Nor sought to know him save as, from afar, 

I watched his shining, like a morning star. 



198 ROOSEVELT 



But I would sing his rare unselfness. Few, 
So highly placed, so keep that sweeter side. 
I lost an elder brother when he died. 

Ethel Brooks Stillwell 

"WHOSE SPIRIT IS SPED" 

"M^AY, we would not choose us a funeral 
measure 
To tell of his passing, whose spirit is sped. 
Who has laid down his hfe as an overworn 
treasure. 
To walk the dim way in the halls of the 
dead; 
But rather the trumpet-note, surging and 
singing 
As keen as a sword from the scabbard 
withdrawn, 
Brave bugles, afar and insistently ringing 
And calling his name, who is gone — who 
is gone. 

For we cannot feel him departed forever; 
For we cannot feel that the great heart is 
still. 
Could Fate, in the maddest of impulse, dis- 
sever 
The thread of his life in this moment of ill. 
When men in the daze of their doubts are 
a-blunder. 
And earth toward a whirlpool of chaos 
is drawn .f* 



ELEGIAC VERSE 199 

We seek for a clear light — the darkness to 
sunder — 
Still calling his name, who is gone — who 
is gone. 

When smaller minds doubted and mild 
voices quavered, 
When men at the helm knew not which 
way to steer. 
His hand, as he pointed the course, never 
wavered. 
His voice cried the issue, insistent and 
clear; 
'Mid petty contriving of petulant faction 
He held to the straight path and carried 
us on; 
And men, in the moment of need and of 
action, 
Call out on his name, who is gone — who 
is gone. 

What counts it whose brow wears the laurels 
of glory? 
We look in our own hearts and read them, 
and know 
That when History's hand shall have written 
the story, 
The brighter his name in its lustre shall 
grow. 
The throb of his pulse through the nation 
is beating. 



200 ROOSEVELT 



And now, in the dusk of our country's 
new dawn, 
As we look for our leader, our lips are re- 
peating 
Forever his name, who is gone — who is 
gone. 

Dean Collins 



"I WONDER IF HE KNOWS IT" 

T WONDER if he knows it — how the boys 

are thinking of him, 
The sturdy little youngsters who all idolize 

and love him ! 
The kids that wear Rough-Rider suits or 

play with Teddy bears. 
Who charge a hill at sleepy-time when they 

climb up the stairs — 
I wonder if he knows it — why, the sorrow 

of their feeling 
Is full of all the balm there is and wonderful 

with healing. 

From olden thrones of Europe, and from 

out the jungle's fastness, 
From lands of snow and sweeps of sand 

across the wide world's vastness, 
Come messages of sympathy couched in 

the words of state 
That tell of horror at the act of frenzy and 

of hate — 



ELEGIAC VERSE 201 

But, O, if he could know it — what the 

youngsters all are saying 
When by their little cots to-night they kneel 

down at their praying. 

I wonder if he knows it — how the children 

ask for "Teddy," 
For children's hearts to show their faith 

are ever firm and ready. 
From golden Cahfornia to the rocky coast 

of Maine 
The hearts of all the youngsters throb to 

sympathy's refrain. 
I wonder if he knows it — how the boys are 

thinking of him ! 
Unselfish, loyal little chaps — a world of good 

'twould do him! j^ii^^, D^ ^,,ut 

HIS LAST WORDS 

"pUT out the light!" Although the 
stars were dim. 

What need of feeble flickering lights to him 

In that high-altared hour? The touch of 
sleep 

Had brought remembrance of his tryst to 
keep — 

A morning tryst — with God's gray mes- 
senger. 

No sound — no cry — no hesitating stir; 

His fearless soul long since had knelt and 
kissed 



202 ROOSEVELT 



A waiting Cross; had borne it through hfe's 

mist 
From an unlighted lone Gethsemane 
To the Christ-hallowed crest of Calvary. 

"Put out the Hght!" Men smile through 
falling tears, 

Remembering the courage of his years 

That stood, each one, for God, humanity 

And covenanted world-wide Liberty ! 

The Nation mourns. Laurel the chancel- 
rail; 

MuflBe the drums. Columbia's banners 
trail 

Their grieving folds; but memories of him 
flame 

And light the deathless glory of his name. 

"Put out the light !" He needs it not who 

won 
A place of permanence within the sun ! 

Edith Daley 

JANUARY 6. 1919 

"M'OW let those slanderers whose tongues 

have said 
Things false of Roosevelt, living, face him, 

Julian Street 



MEMORIALS 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

(From a speech delivered at the dedication of Mount 
Theodore Roosevelt by the Black Hills Pioneers.) 

J-fE was a many-sided man, hut Jour-square 
to all the world. A wise statesman, 
naturalist, author, writer of history, scholar, 
soldier, builder of standards, a man with a 
clean soul and dauntless spirit; whose watch- 
word was duty, and whose life was one for 
right, for country and for God. 
Such was Theodore Roosevelt. 

Leonard Wood 



HIS DAY 

(October 27, 1858) 

'T'HERE were Earth-men and Wing-men, 

But where was the winged clod? 
There were Dream-men and Thing-men; 
But who with a dream was shod? 
Give thanks when ye pray, my brothers, 
Give thanks for the day, my brothers. 
That brought us a master of Dream and 

Thing, 
A soul compacted of Earth and Wing, 
A Man by the grace of God ! 

There were Love-men and Sword-men, 
But none that was flame and rod — 
There were Hand-men and Word-men, 
And single the way they trod. 
Give thanks when ye pray, my brothers, 
Give thanks for the day, my brothers. 
That brought us a master of Hand and 

Word, 
A righteous servant of Love and Sword, 
A Man by the grace of God. 

William Samuel Johnson 

IN THE COVE 

'T'HERE'S a hill above the harbor 

Where ebbs and flows beneath it 
there — 
A small hill, a grassy hill. 
205 



206 ROOSEVELT 



The path is rough and steep: 

The pine-trees sing above it 

And creeping vines enwreath it there — 

The Httle quiet hilltop 

Where the Colonel lies asleep. 

The encircling sea-gulls wheel above 

When winter gales blow over it; 

The song-birds build their nests there, 

And rabbits run and play. 

The locust-trees drop scented flowers 

And moss and myrtle cover it. 

And the wind brings whiffs of sea-salt 

From the whitecaps on the bay. 

Close, close within the heart of home 

The soldier lays him down at last; 

Deep in the quiet Cove he loved, 

The hunter is at rest: 

The Heart of all the Nation sleeps 

Upon our tiny hill at last 

While all the trumpets sound for him 

Beyond the shining West. 

Mary Fanny Youngs 

SAGAMORE 

nPHE birds fly low at Oyster Bay 
To drop wreath after wreath; 
And back and forth they wing their way — 

The pale snow lies beneath. 
The birds fly low at Oyster Bay 

To drop the laurel-wreath. 



MEMORIALS 207 



Beside the white birch, dark with sighs, 

I hear the evergreen. 
The birds descend. A shadow Hes 

The circled trees between. 
Beside the white birch, filled with sighs, 

I see the evergreen. 

And lo, above, and over all 

The frost-hung garden-plot— 
"Quentin," I hear a manly call, 

"I would disturb you not" — 
"My father, know that best of all 

I love this garden-plot." 

"What, here for me, my youngest son, 
With wings of white and gold?" 

"'Tis I— come, hasten. One by one 
Love's mysteries unfold." 

"Quentin for me— my soldier son. 
With wings of gleaming gold." 

"The day is clear, the wind is right," 
The boy replies. "Once more 

The trees are silvery in the hght. 
There's silver on God's shore." . . . 

And side by side— the wind is right— 
They fly from Sagamore. ^^^^^^^ ^^^^ 

THE SHRINE OF THE LION 

YyHEN men, as pilgrims journeying, 

Have traversed earth's wide spaces. 
With hearts elate and glorying. 



208 ROOSEVELT 



In search of holy places — 

Where memories dwell of great ones of our 

kind. 
Heroes of stalwart heart and steadfast mind. 
Who saw beyond the shadow of to-day 
The glory of to-morrow and its light, 
And with the sight 

Did greatly dare to cast their lives away: 
The Spartan Pass that saw Three Hundred 

die, 
The Roman ruins red with martyrs' blood. 
The meadow by the marsh at Runnymede, 
The red-tiled towers of Worms where Luther 

stood. 
The tree-crowned heights that sheltered 

Washington 
When Valley Forge was his Gethsemane, 
And Lincoln's little house in Springfield 

town, — 
Measures and marks of Liberty's slow 

way — 
By this low hill at last they'll stand apart. 
Here by the Lion Shrine of him the Lion 

Heart. 

Hidden amid the great trees that he loved. 
And yet by but a little space removed 
From halls of state. 
From busy council places of the great. 
And crowded streets where simple people 

moved, 
It stands as he stood, ever near to life. 



MEMORIALS 209 



And yet apart, 

Taking his full place in its eager strife, 

Yet holding in his heart 

A joy in God's free spaces, where the trees 

Mount to the sky, where every wandering 

breeze 
Is full of bird-songs, where the stars are 

seen — 
So stands his shrine these two great worlds 

between. 

Dark was the morn to which he came; 

The struggle ages old to make men free 

Had taken new form: new shapes of tyranny, 

Barons of trade, lords of the market-place, 

Threatened the land with shame, 

Threatened its liberty. 

But his the hand 

That brought anew our freedom to our land. 

And his the voice 

That bade our hearts, once trembling, to 

rejoice, 
Till into those hearts he came to more 

than kingly place. 

Born to the purple, how he loved the poor ! 
The common man held ever in his thought 
A large and growing place. He welcomed 

to his door 
All who had knowledge of the way he 

sought. 
And none so humble that he passed them by 



210 ROOSEVELT 



Had they the word that hastened Hberty; 
And none so great if only they would buy 
With coin of willing souls the things that 

make men free. 
Heir of a proud tradition, born to place, 
He knew no class or caste; his thought was 

of the race. 
He was a lion; like a lion fought, 
Where all might see, clear in the sun's full 

light. 
Others might seek the darkness, but he 

brought 
The battle to the day, to open sight. 
Till, baffled in the spoiling that they sought. 
The little skulking beasts of prey took flight. 
He taught bold kings their place; 
He fronted them with courage in his eyes; 
He showed the race, — 
Men of far lands who never knew his voice, — 
The littleness of tyranny's old lies. 
Until their hearts grew brave to high em- 
prise. 
And weary throngs in new hopes found new 
joys. 

All, all is in the stone. A royal grace 
Inhabits every line. The high command- 
ing head 
Looks out in challenge to the brave he led. 
Knowing they hold the hope of all the race. 
Calling to deeds Hke his, 
Summoning men 



MEMORIALS 211 



To leave behind again 

The slow ignoble ways of comfortable ease, 

And battle on, regardless of the pain, 

Scorning as he the pain, 

To win for all, through justice, lasting peace. 

So here is his lion symbol; here, serene and 

strong. 
With head held up to the sun, he waits the 

coming years, 
Waits the hour that shall come too oft as 

the ages throng 
When the heart of the race shall know once 

more the ancient fears. 
Waits the throng that shall come, the 

mighty pilgrim throng. 
With pilgrim hearts aglow, with pilgrim 

minds elate. 
Seeking the word from him to cheer in the 

battle long, 
When tyranny shall take new forms to vex 

the state. 
They shall come, the eager ones, where 

they see his challenging eyes. 
With their ancient summons to conscience, 

their summons to honor and right. 
Dreaming anew his dream, desiring his 

lofty prize, 
A nation that freedom knows and finds in 

freedom its might. 
Then deep in their hearts shall gather the 

courage that made him king. 



212 ROOSEVELT 



While the zeal of his lofty purpose like steel 

shall armor their breasts, 
And the fire of his great compassion con- 
sume each self-born thing. 
Till each heart is itself a shrine where the 

Lion's spirit rests. 
And forth from the mighty presence will 

they go with arms made strong. 
To drive the fears again to the pit where 

darkness Ues, 
Till the narrow trail he blazed is a highway 

broad and long 
To the heights where freemen dwell beneath 

God's ampler skies. 

W. E. Brooks 



ROOSEVELT 

THHE breakers pound the rocks and the 

combers pound the sand. 
Thunder echoing thunder, the white horns 

charge the land. 
And the wind, the gaunt night-herder, 

wheels on his pony white 
And drives his panicky cattle on through 

the fog and the night. 

But high on the bleak, black headland the 

beacon flares to the sky. 
And the flames like banners clap and like 

bugles in battle cry. 



MEMORIALS 213 

And the sparks roar to the stars, with a 

roaring louder than fame; 
And the hearts that they strike as they fall 

tremble and burst into flame. 

Hermann Hagedorn 



IN MEMORIAM 

(Theodore Roosevelt: 1858-1919) 

lY/fEN come and go, as comes and goes 
the sea, 
A surging tide of life in many lands; 
And some strong waves are marked by 
destiny 
To leave a lasting impress on the sands; 
Such was the force of him now mourned 

as dead, 
A thundering billow from the ocean's bed. 

Or like a giant tree on topmost hill. 
That in its falling shakes the very earth, 

He leaves a gap no other man can fill, 
And barbs our grief with sense of his great 
worth; 

His Nation's flagstaff still, the living tree, 

With roots firm planted in democracy. 

Or as a mighty river, when it roars 
Upon the canyon rocks that lie below, 

And of its never-ending volume pours 
A force recaptured in the dynamo, — 



214 ROOSEVELT 



He was alike the stream and instrument 
Through which the current of his age was 
sent. 

His was the lofty scorn of turpitude. 
Of subtle frauds that forge a people's 
yoke; 
So deep his loving of the multitude 
He spoke the common speech of common 
folk; 
His was the courage evil to decry. 
And plainly brand the Uar and the Ue. 

Direct of speech, still more direct of thought, 
He saw with hghtning glance the evil 
thing, 

Nor ever rested till the fight was fought, 
And error poisoned with his verbal sting; 

His was the power the vicious to erase. 

And kill corruption with the perfect phrase. 

Splendid his hatred, nobler still his love. 
The love of home and country, kith and 
kin; 
Nothing on earth he valued as above 

The praise of his own countrymen to win; 
Proud of the land that filled his soul with 

vim. 
His greatest pride that it was proud of him. 

Called from the scenes alike of love and 
strife, 



MEMORIALS 215 



He goes at last to his eternal rest, 
Loved of the land that valued so his life 
It mourns him North and South, and 
East and West. 
Deep is the Nation's grief, and deep will be 
Our gratitude for his blest memory. 

George Douglass 

WHERE ROOSEVELT SLEEPS 

'yniS is America ! Within this tiny spax;e 
Is more of our dear country than the 
mind can see. 
No splendid hall of fame, no proud imposing 
place 
Could hold so much of what we are or 
hope to be. 
This common hallowed ground, that keeps 
his precious dust 
Contains the bones of men whose fame 
has bloomed and blown 
Like some unfound wild flowers, who little 
dreamed they must 
Sleep side by side with him that kings 
have proudly known. 

Let us go through the gateway, up the road 
of sand 
Lined on the right with evergreens that 
hide the fence — 
Graves on the hillside on the left, where, 
gaunt and grand. 



216 ROOSEVELT 



A single pine uprears its head, grim, sere, 
immense. 
A path leads to the left — a path not cut 
by hand, 
But made by many thousand feet — wide- 
worn and bare. 
Up to the summit of the hill, where locusts 
stand, 
With gnarled, rough, thin-leaved branches 
sprawling through the air. 

Here, at the crest, the simple, fenced-in 
square of earth 
Where Roosevelt lies ! . . . America ! 
. , . The man whose creed 
Was writ in two small words, "My Coun- 
try!" — who, from birth. 
Lived, was the spirit of the land he loved 
indeed; 
Who added honor to the highest we be- 
stowed; 
We gave, but he outgave us, for he gave 
us all; 
That mighty, loyal heart, whose passion 
overflowed 
Into us all, was ours at every beck and 
call. 

No marble column, crowned with golden 
wreaths, uptowers 
Upon his grave. A modest gray-stone 
tablet bears 



MEMORIALS 217 



His name. On either side, like guards 
through endless hours, 
Two cedars keep their watch — and what 
a watch is theirs ! 
For in the coming years our country's 
greatest men 
Shall make their loving pilgrimage to 
this rude shrine — 
Shall chmb this little hill to reach the 
heights again 
Where Roosevelt lived — and from his 
grave his life define. 

The little people too shall come — those who 
still speak 
With tongues that stumble o'er the name 
they spell, 
But with unerring hearts that bring them 
here to seek 
Their foster-mother country's soul. This, 
too, is well. 
It proves his all-embracing greatness, and 
that they 
Who worship him are from life's poles, 
from every end; 
Within his giant soul he held all man, — 
could say 
To each who shared his love of country, 
"You — my friend!" 

When later years have made the truth of 
him more true, 



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The drearv ward and its rows « beds. 
And the great black :' t ::' -^ ir= '-~ - :* 

death — 
These are the pxast 

But an' " z. 

The si-- - --- .-— ^ 

Of its - -aks a people's 

grief. 
And a peoj^'s ' " - ' ~ "■ '~z = 

In the brave hi^ - 

From a life that knew but the joy of strife. 
The joy of strife fc* a noUe cause. 
The joy of wc«k for a better world. 
Of heart's Uood speit tor a high ideal; 
The joy of war for the good at man. 

An: : 

Th. . — 

The s'- edims the eye 

Dissolve in liie iigh: :: :- 

By a high resc!"r ni 
And the prood r — r — _ - r^ 

ward. 
The victory that with son-totMied wings 
Shall know not nizht nor the sting d death. 

IT. N. Thager 



220 ROOSEVELT 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT'S LETTERS 
TO HIS CHILDREN 

'l/Y/'HAT happy, kindly memories fill 

This book — the best of tributes due 
him 
Whose great, strong presence warms us still. 
The comrade loved by all who knew him ! 
Whose written words the Man portray 

In Fatherhood to Boyhood turning, 
His children's chum in sport and play, 
In all their friend so well discerning. 

For Childhood had its golden wont 
Within his home, its laws unbroken; 

The irksome admonition, "Don't!", 
By him, it seems, was rarely spoken. 

The White House knew untrammelled joys 
That shamed its customs prim and 
starchy, 
When cataracts of little boys 

Came storming down the stairs with 
Archie. 

Or Quentin, Friend-of-all-the- World, 
Along its hallways roller-skating. 

Conveyed his snakes, politely furled. 
To doubtful Congressmen-in-waiting. 

And there were puppies, little cats, 
And lots of other pets and cronies. 



MEMORIALS 221 



Like pink-eyed rabbits, piebald rats, 
And lizards, guinea-pigs and ponies; 

And feasts and mischief, birthday rites, 

Theatricals and Christmas gambols. 
With Presidential pillow-fights. 

And most exciting tramps and scrambles. 
They loved him most that knew him best, 

For still, our joys and sorrows sharing, 
"The bravest are the tenderest," 

And still "the loving are the daring.** 
Arthur Guiterman 

ODE IN MEMORY OF THEODORE 
ROOSEVELT 

(Read at the Memorial Services held in Lyons, France, 
February 9, 1919, by the author, then Second Lieuten- 
ant, Infantry, A. E. F.) 

A MAN has died. We pause to meet 
this hour 
Of reverent grieving. 
And see the empty road where once he led — 
This comrade of our youth, this man of 
power. 
Upon whose sudden leaving 
A something in each one of us seems dead. 

He lived the wonder spirit of our land; 

He breathed the fevered zeal 
Of our own cities with their towering dreams 

Of brick and steely 



222 ROOSEVELT 



He breathed the glow of Arizona's sand, 
Barren, but glistening where the desert 

teems 
With burning life. He heard the crying 

call 
Of cattle-ranches far in Idaho, 
And in Dakota's summer grazing-plains 
He sought the hoof-prints of the buffalo. 

Within his very veins 
He felt the message of our soil, and all 
Our craving for the forest and the might 
Of giant-shouldered Rocky Mountain peaks 
Rising to touch the beckoning stars at 

night. 
He breathed from sea to sea 
The fragrance of things infinitely free, 
And heard the endless miracle that speaks 
From every corner of our Motherland. 
Thus could he fling with tempered soul 
His life upon the world, and press his hand 
Up to the high fruition of his goal. 
His days in their torrential zeal of living 
Were but a flow of ever-candid giving, 
Until at last this aging man of fire, 
Whom sixty years made young with young 

desire 
Has died. 

We pause before his shrouded bed 

And something in each one of us is dead. 



Rudolph AUrocchi 



MEMORIALS 223 



"L' 



IN IVIEMORIAM— THEODORE 
ROOSEVELT 

ET THERE BE LIGHT "!— God's 

voice was heard — 
Through chaos flashed the answering word — 
Light streamed on every mountain height, 
It gleamed into the valley's night, 
It poured across all nature's span, 
It sprang into the soul of man, 

An incandescent vital force, 
Forthshowing its eternal source 
In ways ineffable and strange 
Through all the years of endless change; 
In humblest child of Adam's seed, 
Its spark unconquerable was freed. 

It flames and burns in prophet, seer. 
Who mighty in each age appear. 
To teach men how the Hving God 
Is found alike by prince and clod, 
To turn them on the righteous way 
That leadeth to the perfect day. 

With such an one this land was blest, 
Whose spirit went on holy quest 
To find the ultimate of good 
For his dear country's constant mood, 
His soul consumed with quenchless fire 
To see it reach "his soul's desire"— 



£24 ROOSEVELT 



For this, aye ready with "the price 
Of his own body's sacrifice" — 
Now he doth calm and silent lie, 
His work well done, we glorify — 
Through all America is felt, 
The blessed spell of Roosevelt. 

Annette Kohn 



OUR ROOSEVELT 

(Read by the author at the Dedicatory Exercises 
of the Roosevelt Children's Park Memorial, on Molo- 
kai, October 27, 1921.) 

I 

/^RANT us grace that we may greet him, 
Give us a word with which to meet him. 
Homage to pay, with humblest mind. 
That here he find 

A homelike place where he may rest, 
The eagle wearied from his quest. 
The worker, finished with his task. 
This boon we ask — 
That though unworthily we praise 
Even the sun that lights our days. 
Ingratitude be not our blight, 
Ere it is night. 

II 

Here on the heart of the heaving sea. 
The Lonely Isle is no longer lone. 
For here a thought of him shall be 
Our very own ! 



MEMORIALS 225 



The Lonely Isle— a strip of sand- 
Silvery shining in its sleep, 
Wave-washed and low, with sudden, grand 
Uplifting from the deep. 
Remote from swift and whitening sails. 
Apart from a world of worry and strife, — 
Shepherds shall dream in its happy vales 
New psalms of life; 
And here the healing of the world 
Be manifest to those whom Fate, 
Beneath relentless lightnings hurled. 
Hath left to wait; 
Here, too, the life of childhood be 
Joyous, purposeful, strongly felt, 
Inspired by thoughts brave, noble, free, 
Of Roosevelt. 

For here beneath the arching sky. 
And circled by the eternal sea. 
Staunch hearts are graved on Molokai, 
Loved Roosevelt, by thee. 
He needs no tribute, marble, brass. 
Whose name himself on hearts engraves; 
Glad generations, singing, pass 
Under Love's architraves. 

Mary Dillingham Frear 

THE GRAVE OF ROOSEVELT 

"LJE had found joy in these wide-reaching 

trees. 
This sun-warmed hillside ringed with sea 
and sky, 



226 ROOSEVELT 



Where now, companioned by the stir of bees, 
Bird-wings and rusthng grasses, he may He, 
Here changing seasons guard him; Autumn's 

faith — 
Flaming across the fields — that time will 

bring 
Summer's fulfilment; that the gray, grim 

wraith 
Of Winter is the trumpeter of Spring. 

Such was his wont when heavy cares 

oppressed. 
To seek a respite from the strifes of men; 
To turn, a child, to the earth-mother's 

breast, 
Then rise, Antaeus-like, to fight again. 
O reverent pilgrims toiling up the steep. 
Step softly, lest you break his well-earned 

sleep. 



Snow Longley 

SAGAMORE 

At Sagamore the Chief lies low — 
Above the hill, in circled row. 
The whirring airplanes dip and fly, 
A guard of honor from the sky; — 
Eagles to guard the Eagle. Woe 
Is on the world. The people go 
With listless footstep, blind and slow; — 
For one is dead — who shall not die — 
At Sagamore. 



MEMORIALS 227 



Oh! Land he loved, at last you know 
The son who served you well below; 
The prophet voice, the visioned eye. 
Hold him in ardent memory. 
For one is gone — who shall not go — 
From Sagamore ! 

Corinne Roosevelt Robinson 



INDEX TO AUTHORS 



INDEX TO AUTHORS 



Adams, Franklin P. 

The Cataract of T. K., 64 

An Ode to T. R., 65 
Almy, Frederic 

To Vice-President Roosevelt, 
35 
Altrocchi, Rudolph 

Ode in Memory of Theodore 
Roosevelt, 221 
Anderson, Robert Gordon 

Leader of Men, 148 
Anonymous 

Turn Them Loose ! 26 

A Soliloquy, 37 

Ready for Teddy, 62 

On Guard, 132 

"A Mourning Cloud Lies 
Black Across the Sun," 174 

Baker, Gene 

A Brother Gone, 174 
Baker, Harry T. 

To a Patriot, 146 
Bangs, John Kendrick 

Little Orphant Teddy, 50 
Bates, Katharine Lee 

Roosevelt's Guest, 39 

Does He Hunt with the Great 
Orion? 176 
Baynes, Ernest Harold 

Death and Roosevelt, 141 
Beard, Theresa Virginia 

The Death of Roosevelt, 166 
Beer, Morris Abel 

A Boy of Old Manhattan, 3 
Bispham, Caroline Russell 

The Eagle, 138 
Blauss, John Lincoln 

Master of Hearts of Men, 167 
Bocock, John Paul 

Rough Riding at El Caney, 13 
Bonnell, Margaret Boyce 

Man of Straight Word, 109 

Election Day, 178 
Boylan, Grace Duffie 

Who Goes There? 56 



Braley, Berton 

Guess Who? 84 

Enough, 96 
Bridges, Robert 

On the Hill, 32 

Roosevelt in Wyoming, 36 
Brooks, W. E. 

The Shrine of the Lion, 207 
Burr, Amelia Josephine 

Mr. Valiant Passes Over, 150 

Camp, Pauline Frances 

His Name, 61 
Carman, Bliss 

The Rough Rider, 9 
Chapman, John Jay 

Roosevelt, 151 
Clark, Thomas Curtis 

The Happy Warrior, 175 
Cole, Samuel Valentine 

Half-Mast the Flag, 169 
Collins, Dean 

"Whose Spirit Is Sped," 198 
Conant, Isabel F"iske 

The Lion that Roosevelt Shot, 
131 

America's Triumvirate, 192 
Cone, Helen Gray 

Of Him Who Loved Not 
Rest, 187 
Cooke, Edmund Vance 

"The Hunter Tiring of the 
Chase," 186 
Cooley, Julia 

The Progressive, 77 
Crane, Walter Beverly 

"BwanaTumbo" — The Great 
Hunter, 95 
Crawford, Captain Jack 

If Roosevelt Had Been Bad, 
48 

D., C. 

St. Rooseveltius, 59 
Daley, Edith 
His Last Words, 201 



231 



232 



INDEX TO AUTHORS 



Davis, Robert H. 


Hall, Mabel Kinney 


He Came From Out the 


"Within the Torrent's On- 


Void, 149 


ward Whirl," 187 


Day, Carlos 


Hay, John 


My Kinsman, 182 


To Theodore Roosevelt, 38 


de Kay, Margaret 


Hayne, William Hamilton 


The Courier, 197 


Into the Silence, 144 


Donaldson, Robert A. 


Henderson, Daniel 


Roosevelt Dead, 173 


Fighting Stock, 109 


Donner, Herman Montagu 


Histed, Thaddeus C. 


Guardian of Thy Land, 144 


When Teddy Hits the West, 


Douglass, George 


69 


In Memoriam, 213 


Huhner, Leon 


Draper, William H. 


"Gigantic Figure of a Mighty 


Call Him the Child of God, 53 


Age," 162 


Eglinton, Marie L. 


Irwin, Wallace 


Gone Is Ulysses, 154 


The Ballad of Sagamore Hill, 
44 


Ferguson, William P. F. 


He Entereth America by the 


We Miss Him So ! 188 


Front Door, 57 


Foulke, William Dudley 


The Ballad of Grizzly Gulch, 


Lo! He Would Lift the Bur- 


78 


den, 67 


Johnson, Robert Underwood 


Our Lost Captain, 143 


On a Candidate Accused of 


Frear, Mary Dillingham 


Youth, 3 


Our Roosevelt, 224 


Johnson, William Samuel 




His Day, 205 


Garrison, Theodosia 


Jones, Nina 


The Mighty Oak, 131 


Great Is Our Grief, 136 


Gilbert, W. B. 




Though Others Slept, 133 


Kemp, Harry 


Gilder, Richard Watson 


The President, 55 


"Live Thou in Nature," 55 


Kipling, Rudyard 


Glaenzer, Richard Butler 


Great-Heart, 113 


Colonel Roosevelt in Domin- 


Kirk, Murray Ketcham 


ica, 100 


The Beacon-Light, 184 


Graham, Harry 


Kiser, S. E. 


A Portrait, 40 


The Yankee Dude'll Do, 20 


Greene, Hiram Moe 


Knowles, Frederic Lawrence 


We Need No Marble Shaft, 


The Man in the White House, 


191 


77 


Guiterman, Arthur 


Kohn, Annette 


The Rough Riders, 29 


In Memoriam — Theodore 


Thank God for a Manl 49 


Roosevelt, 223 


Our Colonel, 155 




Theodore Roosevelt's Letters 


Lee, Guy 


to His Children, 220 


The First Pager, 90 




Le Gallienne, Richard 


H., J. A. 


Small Men at Grapple with a 


The Great, Wild, Free Soul, 


Mighty Hour, 124 


133 


Lindsay, Vachel 


Hagedorn, Hermann 


In Which Roosevelt Is Com- 


Roosevelt, 212 


pared to Saul, 124 



INDEX TO AUTHORS 



233 



The Spacious Days of Roose- 
velt, 126 
Longley, Snow 

The Grave of Roosevelt, 225 
Low, John W. 

He Hated Sham, 163 

Masters, Edgar Lee 

At Sagamore Hill, 117 
M'Groarty, John S. 

The Escort of the Yellow- 
stone, 81 
Miller, J. Corson 

The Stag, 192 

Ring Down Life's Mammoth 
Curtain, 193 
Moore, George Macdonald 

San Juan, 15 
Moore, John Trotwood 

The Unafraid, 83 
Mortland, Sam (Scotty) 

"Roosevelt to France," 105 

Nesbit, Wilbur D. 

"I Wonder if He Knows It," 
200 

Owens, Vilda Sauvage 
"Where the Tree Falleth." 

136 
"Put Out the Light!" 147 

Partridge, Margaret Ridgely 
Sargent's Portrait of Theo- 
dore Roosevelt, 44 

Proctor, Edna Dean 
Cid of the West, 165 

Pulsifer, Harold T. 

The Riderless Horse, 189 

Restarick, May L. 

"When Shall We Look Upon 
His Like Again?" 177 
Rethy, Joseph Bernard 

From Haunts of Beasts, 99 
Robinson, Corinne Roosevelt 

Vision, 68 

The A. E. F. to T. R., 127 

To My Brother, 128 

A Woman Speaks to Theo- 
dore Roosevelt's Sister, 129 

Sagamore, 226 
Robinson, Edwin Arlington 

The Revealer, 71 



Rooney, John Jerome 

" We Cannot Think of Him as 
of the Dead," 134 
Roundy, Williftm Noble 

On Reading of Theodore 
Roosevelt's Work as Police 
Commissioner, 4 
Ryan, Coletta 
Sagamore, 206 

Sabin, Edwin L. 

Rough Riders, 27 
Soollard, Clinton 

A Man ! 135 
Scotty, see Mortland, Sam 
Siegrist, Mary 
The Ongoing, 139 
Roosevelt, The Leader, 157 
Smith, Ella Grandom 

The Meeting, 181 
Smith, Marion Couthouy 

Ballad of the Rough Riders, 18 
The Call of the Hour, 104 
The Star, 161 
The Consoler, 161 
Feast of the Epiphany, 179 
Stafford, Wendell Phillips 
"He Is All Ours," 164 
Sterrett, Roger 

Gray is the Pall of the Sky, 
142 
Stillman, Liska 

Close to a Nation's Beating 
Pulse He Stands, 54 
Stillwell, Ethel Brooks 
When He Died, 197 
Street, Julian 

January 6, 1919, 202 

Thayer, W. S. 

The Minute-Guns, 218 
Toombs, Jefferson 

Missing, 89 
Towne, Charles Hanson 

Pilot and Prophet, 168 
Townsend, Lilbum Harwood 

Oh, for a Son of Thy Relent- 
less Power, 141 
Trumbull, Walter 

The Return, 97 

Vanamee, Grace D. 

Toll the Bells, 171 
Van Housen, C. H. 

Farewell! 145 



234 



INDEX TO AUTHORS 



Van Zile, Edward S. 

Close Up the Ranks! 153 
Varley, Harry 

Where Roosevelt Sleeps, 215 

Watson, William 

To Theodore Roosevelt, 73 
Wharton, Edith 

With the Tide, 115 
Whitman, Stephen French 

The Ballad of "Teddy's Ter- 
rors," 22 
Wilbur, Minnie D. 

Not Dead, 190 
Wilbur, Russell J. 

Apotheosis, 195 



Wilkinson, L. Upton 

To Eraser's Death-Mask of 
Roosevelt, 160 
Willey, Clarence H. 

Resurgit Theodore, 185 
Wilson, McLandburgh 

'Tis Not Alone in Flanders 
Fields, 190 
Wister, Owen 

To Theodore Roosevelt, 103 
Wood, Leonard 

Theodore Roosevelt, 204 

Youngs, Mary Fanny 
In the Cove, 205 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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